Colin Graves remains poised to complete his return to Yorkshire, despite conflict and confusion at the club. However, a second day of board meetings ended without an announcement that the takeover had been ratified, while the local MP has asked investors to come forward and reports suggest that the club’s own rules would prevent Graves sitting on its board.
Alex Sobel, the Labour MP for Leeds North West, whose constituency includes Yorkshire’s Headingley home, said he was “asking people to come forward as alternatives” as he tries to stop the club’s conversion into a private company. “If there are real and legitimate potential investors, I’m happy to speak to anybody that wants to keep Yorkshire as a members’ club,” he said.
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Yorkshire said on Monday “no stone has been left unturned” in their search for investment, having met “over 350 interested parties”, with the board conducting “a thorough and rigorous process to ensure the club stays operational for the benefit of its members, creditors and employees”. They owe the Graves Family Trust around £15m and are said to need an immediate investment of around £4m to stave off financial crisis.
Should his takeover go ahead, Graves is known to be keen on turning the club into a private company, but Sobel described such a move as “an absolute red line”, saying he would “oppose any attempt to take Yorkshire away from members and make it a private entity as it will be done for profit and weaken accountability and long-term viability”.
Having described dressing-room racism as “banter” last year, Graves is expected to make a full apology to victims of discrimination at the club and to those offended by his language once his takeover is approved.
“For me, words are not enough,” Sobel said. “We have to have a very clear action plan to continue the progress we’ve made. The club has to be open about what it’s doing and he needs to be part of that process. We can’t go back, we can only go forward and he has to be committed to that and to actions.”
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Sobel’s intervention came after it was claimed that if Graves does not change Yorkshire’s status he would be unable to return as chairman under its own rules, which stipulate that no one can serve on the board for more than 12 years or be chair for more than six years. Graves served as Yorkshire’s chief executive from 2002 to 2007 and as chairman or executive chairman from 2007 to 2015, a total of 12 years and seven months on the board, and eight years as chair.
The process of turning Yorkshire into a private company would take, at a minimum, several weeks: like most counties it is registered as a society under the Co-Operative and Community Benefit Societies Act 2014. Converting it would need a vote of at least 50% of members, of whom at least 75% would have to approve it, followed by a second, confirmatory vote, at which a simple majority would be sufficient, between 14 days and one month later.
Graves’s takeover would also have to be approved at an extraordinary general meeting, which will be called once his offer is formally accepted.
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