Former Prime Minister Sir John Major has delivered a remarkable attack on the leadership of the Marylebone Cricket Club, accusing them of “traducing” his reputation and of damaging the club through poor governance and mismanagement.
Pitch battle: the future of Lord's is the subject of a bitter row involving Sir John Major.
The MCC, based at Lord’s, the home of cricket, are responsible for the laws of the game and its members are seen as the guardian of its values of fair play, but Major’s intervention threatens to plunge the normally genteel organisation into civil war.
His comments, which follow a long and bitter dispute over the future development of Lord’s, could lead to calls for the resignation of the club’s President and chairman from members known to be uneasy about the fallout form a row over plans for a £400m redevelopment of Lord’s.
A huge cricket fan, Major described as being comparable to the moment he became prime minister. He was subsequently appointed to the club’s main committee, but resigned last November after it voted not to proceed with a £400m redevelopment of Lord’s.
Major had been a keen advocate of the redevelopment plans, known as the “Vision for Lord’s”, but his resignation was prompted with concerns over the way the decision was reached and the club’s governance under chairman Oliver Stocken, a banker.
Subsequently however, the club leadership have claimed that Major resigned because he was opposed to the decision to drop the redevelopment, most recently in a letter sent last month to more than 10,000 members by MCC President Philip Hodson.
In a strongly-worded response to Hodson sent last Friday, a copy of which has seen by The Daily Telegraph, Sir John accused the president of “misrepresenting” his views, and the club of rigging committees in order to ensure that the redevelopment scheme did not go ahead.
In his letter Hodson claimed that the committee rejected the redevelopment because it felt “preservation of Lord’s as a cricket ground was more important than a windfall of cash”, and that this stance led to Major’s resignation.
In his response former Prime Minister totally rebuts that accusation.
“I fear that your letter totally misrepresents the reason for my resignation from the main committee,” Major writes. “I did not resign over the decision to abandon the ‘Vision for Lord’s’, even though I believe it is a serious mistake the Club may come to regret. I resigned due to the manner in which this decision was reached.”
Major writes that he is angry at the way in which his view has been “traduced”, and says that while he agreed not to make any public comment following his resignation, the club chairman and Hodson have “repeatedly misrepresented” his position. In a sign of his anger, he states that he has copied his letter to all Committee members, and asks that it be circulated to all members.
“Although I have kept my own counsel, others have not. I have found the reason for my resignation repeatedly misrepresented in the media, and now in your letter to members.
“It gives the impression that I did believe cash was more important than the preservation of Lord’s whereas this is not, and never has been, my view. Unsurprisingly, such an impression has generated a reaction from people who have been misled.
“At the time of my resignation I told the Chairman – orally and in writing – that, if my position was traduced, I would not hesitate to correct the record. It is for this reason that I am copying this letter to all members of the Main Committee, and would ask that you copy it to all Full and Senior Members. That way there can be no further doubt about the reason for my resignation.
Major accepts the committee’s right to reject the development, but says in doing so it has missed out on at least £50m and the episode has damaged the MCC’s reputation.
“This episode has been damaging – to the MCC purse, and our reputation. This is not the way our club should be run.”
Major also criticises the club leadership for the way it handled the redevelopment decision, and of “unceremoniously ditching” the plans following a “biased” process using “tendentious” arguments.
Originally conceived as a wholesale redevelopment of Lord’s in partnership with a property developer, the club downgraded its plans in favour of piecemeal development.
Major says the club leadership engineered the reversal by prematurely disbanding a Development Committee examining the project on which he served, a move he describes as “a peremptory dismissal”.
The leadership then founded a new committee, the “Ground Working Party”, that Major claims was biased. “The composition of its membership was entirely biased against the plans in the Vision,” he writes.
“As the Chairman of the Working Party conceded to me in Committee, this ‘Working Party’ contained only opponents of the scheme.”
Major tells Hodson the arguments put forward by this committee in a final report were “tendentious”.
“It seemed as though this report had been drafted in such a way as to justify a pre-determined outcome. As a result, the working party report unceremoniously ditched many years of work on the Vision for Lord’s.”
An MCC spokesman said the club would not comment on private correspondence. It is understood that Hodson hopes to meet Major to discuss his concerns.
In a strongly-worded response to Hodson sent last Friday, a copy of which has seen by The Daily Telegraph, Sir John accused the president of “misrepresenting” his views, and the club of rigging committees in order to ensure that the redevelopment scheme did not go ahead.
In his letter Hodson claimed that the committee rejected the redevelopment because it felt “preservation of Lord’s as a cricket ground was more important than a windfall of cash”, and that this stance led to Major’s resignation.
In his response former Prime Minister totally rebuts that accusation.
“I fear that your letter totally misrepresents the reason for my resignation from the main committee,” Major writes. “I did not resign over the decision to abandon the ‘Vision for Lord’s’, even though I believe it is a serious mistake the Club may come to regret. I resigned due to the manner in which this decision was reached.”
Major writes that he is angry at the way in which his view has been “traduced”, and says that while he agreed not to make any public comment following his resignation, the club chairman and Hodson have “repeatedly misrepresented” his position. In a sign of his anger, he states that he has copied his letter to all Committee members, and asks that it be circulated to all members.
“Although I have kept my own counsel, others have not. I have found the reason for my resignation repeatedly misrepresented in the media, and now in your letter to members.
“It gives the impression that I did believe cash was more important than the preservation of Lord’s whereas this is not, and never has been, my view. Unsurprisingly, such an impression has generated a reaction from people who have been misled.
“At the time of my resignation I told the Chairman – orally and in writing – that, if my position was traduced, I would not hesitate to correct the record. It is for this reason that I am copying this letter to all members of the Main Committee, and would ask that you copy it to all Full and Senior Members. That way there can be no further doubt about the reason for my resignation.
Major accepts the committee’s right to reject the development, but says in doing so it has missed out on at least £50m and the episode has damaged the MCC’s reputation.
“This episode has been damaging – to the MCC purse, and our reputation. This is not the way our club should be run.”
Major also criticises the club leadership for the way it handled the redevelopment decision, and of “unceremoniously ditching” the plans following a “biased” process using “tendentious” arguments.
Originally conceived as a wholesale redevelopment of Lord’s in partnership with a property developer, the club downgraded its plans in favour of piecemeal development.
Major says the club leadership engineered the reversal by prematurely disbanding a Development Committee examining the project on which he served, a move he describes as “a peremptory dismissal”.
The leadership then founded a new committee, the “Ground Working Party”, that Major claims was biased. “The composition of its membership was entirely biased against the plans in the Vision,” he writes.
“As the Chairman of the Working Party conceded to me in Committee, this ‘Working Party’ contained only opponents of the scheme.”
Major tells Hodson the arguments put forward by this committee in a final report were “tendentious”.
“It seemed as though this report had been drafted in such a way as to justify a pre-determined outcome. As a result, the working party report unceremoniously ditched many years of work on the Vision for Lord’s.”
An MCC spokesman said the club would not comment on private correspondence. It is understood that Hodson hopes to meet Major to discuss his concerns.
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