Cricket Ireland drop development bombshell

CricketEurope



In devastating news for the game, Cricket Ireland are planning to make all their Development Officers redundant.

Brian O'Rourke (Leinster), Jim Doran (Munster), Simon Johnston, Nigel Jones (both NCU), and Brian Allen, Colin Manson (both NW) have all been sent letters informing them of the decision and been called to a crisis meeting by Cricket Ireland today (Friday).

A recently concluded financial review has reportedly recommended that the six officers are expendable.

It's a terrible indictment on the game that those deemed worthy of sacrifice are the most important if the sport is to have an opportunity to grow at grass roots level.

It also makes a mockery of Cricket Ireland's mantra of 'making cricket mainstream', and comes one week after another club went out of existence - Limavady CC.

Despite having over a 9 million euro budget, there has been a considerable overspend - £160k is the figure currently being touted.

Cricket Ireland's spending at the top level shows no signs of diminishing, with costly training camps in India and Spain being announced just yesterday.

Somebody has clearly got their priorities wrong.