Friday, February 27, 2009

Giles Clarke: Yet another inaccuracy

We have already written about Giles Clarke, the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, twice this week.

On Wednesday we reported his far-fetched claim that he had received 9000 supportive e-mails over the Allen Stanford affair.

Yesterday we reported that the Guardian had printed a correction saying that Clarke's claim that the ECB had taken external advice from KPMG on a deal proposed by Stanford was untrue.

This evening Mihir Bose writes on the BBC website:

Two years ago, when I compiled a BBC Newsnight piece on cricket, I was very impressed what was being done in places like Coventry to introduce youngsters to the game and since then, the ECB has, at every opportunity, made much of the fact that one of the beneficiaries of its Stanford involvement would be Chance to Shine.

That point was made in November 2008 during the Stanford match and earlier this week Giles Clarke, in interviews following his re-election as ECB chairman, said some of the money received from Stanford had already gone to the scheme.

However, a spokesman for the charity has now told me that no money has been received and I understand they are seeking clarification from the ECB as to what exactly Clarke meant.

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