ROSEAU, Dominica, CMC – Grenada’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell yesterday slammed what he called an “amazing level of disrespect” on the part of West Indies Cricket Board president Dave Cameron, as pressure continued to mount on the beleaguered Board to meet urgently with CARICOM leaders over the Governance Review Panel report.
Mitchell, the chairman of CARICOM’s Cricket Governance Committee, stopped short of issuing an ultimatum to the WICB but urged Cameron to rethink his decision not to accommodate a meeting with regional Heads before the Board of Directors meeting on December 12 in St Lucia.
Cameron has been adamant about the WICB’s inability to accommodate the Caribbean leaders prior to the already scheduled meeting and reiterated this position in written communication to CARICOM Secretary-General Irwin LaRocque on Tuesday.
“It is quite amazing the level of disrespect. The level of lack of understanding of the importance of this is quite frightening and I don’t think I should hold back any words,” Mitchell said bluntly, as he spoke on the last day of the OECS Summit here.
“I expect the president of the West Indies Cricket Board to respect the leadership of the Caribbean, the leadership of the people of the region and to give effect to an urgent meeting.
“We expect no less and I hope and pray what we saw was a rush of blood and not his (Cameron) real intentions so I expect to see a meeting very, very soon between the leadership and we are waiting for that answer to meet quickly to move cricket forward in the region.”
The salvo from the veteran Caribbean leader is the latest in the standoff between the WICB and CARICOM, following the release of the Governance Review Panel report earlier this month.
Chaired by UWI Cave Hill Campus principal, Professor Eudine Barriteau, the panel had as its main recommendation the “immediate dissolution of the West Indies Cricket Board and the appointment of an interim board whose structure and composition would be radically different from the now proven, obsolete governance framework.”
Cameron, while speaking in the Cayman Islands last weekend, again stressed that scheduling an “urgent meeting” as had been requested by CARICOM, was impractical as the Board needed time to go over the report.
Also, he said there were “a number of professionals who sit on the West Indies Cricket Board and just calling a Board of Directors meeting is not that easy.”
The statement provoked Mitchell’s ire, forcing him to respond here on Wednesday’s opening day of the Summit and again yesterday.
“It was a bit disheartening to hear the president of the West Indies Cricket Board indicating in a recent public statement … that the Board of Directors were so busy and they are professional people,” Mitchell said.
“I thought that was a very strange comment. Here you have regional leaders in their own right successful [and] professional … and also extremely busy in their own right with their responsibilities and then the president of the board is saying that his Board of Directors are too busy.”
He continued: “In addition, the Secretary-General of CARICOM on my recommendation wrote the president indicating that there was need for urgent, urgent meeting – not necessarily [to say] what we will do with the report – [but] let us meet to discuss the report.
“His letter from the Secretary-General was placed in the press … and not only that but a reply saying they were too busy and could not meet with the leaders, and indicating that they were having a meeting in St Lucia on the 12th of December and they were inviting us to come to that meeting,” Mitchell added in a tone of disbelief.
Mitchell said though regional leaders were extremely busy, they were willing to sacrifice the time to discuss the pressing issue of Caribbean cricket.
“As Heads we are extremely busy with activities at our door every single minute, at every hour of the day in our individual countries,” he pointed out.
“But recognising the value and the importance of cricket and sports to the region as a whole and to our people, we have decided that we would sacrifice the time we did not even have to ensure that we can in fact move forward, and get West Indies cricket back to a point where we can start going up the ladder once again.”
The panel was commissioned by the CARICOM Cricket Governance Committee back in April, with input from the WICB.
