Cricket club chief executive quits

The 19-month tenure of Worcestershire County Cricket Club’s chief executive Tom Scott has been ended by a 31-word statement.

Scott has resigned and will stay on until the end of 2017, the club said.

Worcestershire currently lie second behind Nottinghamshire in the County Championship Division Two and reached the semi-finals of the Royal London One-Day Cup.

Scott started in January 2016, following David Leatherdale’s move to the Professional Cricketers’ Association, before taking the job on a permanent basis in July of that year.

Scott had previously founded and built The Cotswold Group, which was the club’s main sponsor before it was bought by G4S in 2011.

The statement said: “Worcestershire County Cricket Club have today announced the resignation of Tom Scott ‘Chief Executive’. Tom will remain at the Club until the end of the year and a replacement is found.”

Worcestershire’s constitution puts the chief executive and the director of cricket at the same level and a revised version is expected to be voted on by the club’s members at its AGM in March.

However club chairman Steve Taylor told ESPNcricinfo that Scott’s departure was not caused by a clash with director of cricket Steve Rhodes.

Taylor said: “It’s true Tom was frustrated at times by the structure of the club, but there was no personal problem. It had always been the understanding that he would do the job for two or three years so, while he is probably going a year before we had planned, it is something we have been talking about for a month or so. He just felt it was the right time.

“He brought a huge amount of commercial experience to the club and we desperately needed that. I think he also won people over with his approachable manner. He did a great job in restructuring our commercial operation and leaves a modernised club – both commercially and constitutionally – which should be in a great state for the next CEO to walk into.”