<\/p>\n
The Yorkshire<\/a> chief executive, Stephen Vaughan, says anyone who could help assist the club with their financial difficulties would be \u201clistened to seriously\u201d for the chair vacancy, with Colin Graves having stated his interest in returning.<\/p>\n Vaughan spelt out the issues facing the club to members at the county\u2019s annual general meeting on Friday night, highlighting a \u00a33.5m cash shortfall this year, and the need to repay \u00a314.9m to the Graves Trust.<\/p>\n A return for Graves would be controversial, with his first stint as chairman from 2012 and 2015 overlapping with Azeem Rafiq\u2019s time at the club, a period in which the club have now admitted they failed to address the systemic use of racist and or discriminatory language. Nevertheless, he stated earlier this year he was ready to return \u201con his terms\u201d.<\/p>\n Robin Smith, also a former county chairman and a long-standing associate of Graves, asked the board at the AGM why it was \u201cprevaricating\u201d on Graves\u2019s return, urging it to \u201ccome to terms with Colin in short order and get rid of all this confusion and delay\u201d.<\/p>\n Vaughan and the co-chair Baroness Grey-Thompson spoke during the meeting about the \u201crobust process\u201d being followed to recruit a replacement for outgoing chair Lord Kamlesh Patel.<\/p>\n After the AGM, Vaughan said: \u201cClearly, it wouldn\u2019t be fair to talk about any people that may or may not be interested in that role. However, we\u2019re very open to people that can do well for the club. When Lord Patel came in there was a remit for the chair at that time and it was obviously fairly transformational change, that remit has changed.<\/p>\n \u201cSomeone who can help with the refinancing of the club and can help us commercially going forward will be weighted very much as a key performance indicator. Anybody that can do that will be listened to seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n Vaughan told members there were \u201cmultiple conversations\u201d going on around the refinancing of club debt. He also said things \u201cwould get worse before they get better\u201d with the impending Cricket<\/a> Discipline Commission sanctions but insisted the issues facing Yorkshire were not \u201cinsurmountable\u201d.<\/p>\n Vaughan hopes the county\u2019s efforts to transform themselves are accounted for when sanctions are imposed over the racism scandal that engulfed the club.<\/p>\n The county have admitted four charges in relation to the CDC case related to allegations made by former Yorkshire bowler Rafiq. Decisions on liability concerning six individuals formerly connected to Yorkshire, including the former England captain Michael Vaughan, could come as early as next week from the CDC, but the Yorkshire chief executive is eager to learn what sanctions the club will face at the earliest opportunity.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to rip the band aid off,\u201d Vaughan said. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about a matter of years now that these things have been going on, and I can tell you (there is a) kind of fog that hangs over the organisation at the moment because we don\u2019t know (what will happen).<\/p>\n