Kevin Roberts has resigned from his role as CEO of Cricket Australia following mass criticism over his handling of the coronavirus.
He was spoken of negatively due to his cost-cutting measures, which including asking all of his staff to take a pay cut of 80%.
Roberts was given the position of CEO in October of 2018,
and this came after a 17-year tenure by James Sutherland. With his decision to
resign, the CEO has now been temporarily replaced by Englishman Nick Hockley,
who is the current CEO of the T20 World Cup. However, an operational reset will
be announced sometime this week by Cricket Australia.
The now former CEO of Cricket Australia couldn’t have
expected any other kind of result, though. He lost complete confidence of the
board, the states and both the players and the staff, thanks to his decisions
made during the outbreak of coronavirus. While a good leader would have
remained cool and calm, Roberts opted to jump in with all guns blazing, making
wrong decision after wrong decision.
Painting a negative picture of what the future of Cricket
Australia would look like in his own mind, Roberts pretty much lost a huge
amount of support from the board, especially from those that were fully centred
in his corner. Simply put, nobody believed him when he mentioned that cricket
had been left flat broke in Australia due to the shutdown of sports.
Cricket Remains on a High but Roberts is Third Sporting
CEO to Depart Recently
There is still a big interest in cricket from both players
and fans of the sport alike. This remains evident as the number of bettors
wagering on games at online sportsbooks continues growing with the sport
restarting in recent weeks. Ladbrokes is one such site that has reported such,
with its mobile app being utilised frequently for cricket betting. You’re able
to learn how
to install Ladbrokes app for iOS and other devices at numerous locations, and
then use this to place sports bets of all natures. It’s pretty much like having
the Ladbrokes sportsbook with you wherever you go, and this way, you don’t have
to miss out on any cricket betting opportunities.
Roberts isn’t the only CEO of a major Australian sport to make
a departure in recent times, though. He’s actually the third, considering that Todd
Greenburg stepped down from the National Rugby League and Raelene Castle
resigned from his post as Rugby Australia’s CEO in April. Yet, while they
resigned solely due to accusations of money being wasted, Roberts also received
backlash over his dealings with cricket’s players.
Players are actually bound to an income model that tracks
the revenues of the game. However, when the contents of Cricket Australia’s
revenue forecast for the 2020-21 season came (late, may we add), it proved to
be an email sent out with nothing but bad news on it. Scarce content within
predicted that a 48% drop in revenue would be experienced and that was all.
That email was dismissed as nonsense by Australian Cricketers’ Association
(ACA) CEO, Alistair Nicholson, and Roberts pretty much sealed his own fate.
