ICC suspends Project USA

Malcolm Speed: unhappy with the 'unsatisfactory state of governance in the USA' © Getty Images

The ICC has announced the suspension of the Project USA initiative due to concerns over the governance of the United States of America Cricket Association (USACA). Malcolm Speed, the ICC's chief executive, said that outstanding issues had not been dealt with in a satisfactory manner by the association.

"The ICC is not satisfied that the USACA is meeting its obligations to review and restructure its governance to meet the needs of Project USA, and as a consequence Project USA is now suspended," Speed said in a press release, adding that the future of the tripartite initiative between the ICC, the West Indies Cricket Board and the USACA would now be discussed by the ICC board.

"We have witnessed the unseemly and public debate surrounding the USACA elections. At this stage we are not able to recommend to the ICC Full Members that they participate in Project USA given the unsatisfactory state of governance in the USA. I will now be preparing a report on the status of this project for consideration by the ICC board at its next meeting." The ICC board is due to meet in New Delhi on March 17-18.

The news comes less than a month after a leaked letter from Ehsan Mani, the ICC's president, and Speed slated the way the USACA was being run. "We have seen numerous sporting organisations in various states of disarray throughout our period of involvement as sports administrators," they wrote. "We have never seen a sporting organisation that combines such great potential and such poor administration as USACA. From our observations, much of the blame for this lies with the current office bearers of USACA including yourself. We question whether the current administration of USACA can play any constructive role in taking the game forward in the United States."

They also warned that they would not shy from suspending Project USA if certain issues were not resolved, adding: "We have now been approached by other countries that would like to replace USA as the preferred partner of ICC to deliver international cricket matches."

But instead of getting better, matters grew worse, culminating in the suspension of the USACA's elections and growing in-fighting among officials. Negative comments attributed to Gladstone Dainty, the USACA president, criticising the ICC would hardly have helped, even though Dainty subsequently denied them.