Former Cricket Scotland chairman has ‘serious concerns’ over McKinney report

Tony Brian warns against drawing conclusions from report into alleged sexism

Former Cricket Scotland chairman Tony Brian has warned against drawing conclusions from a report into alleged sexism in the organisation

Former Cricket Scotland chairman Tony Brian has warned against drawing conclusions from a report into alleged sexism in the organisation as he outlined progress made in the women’s and girls’ game in recent years.

Current Cricket Scotland chief executive Trudy Lindblade this week accepted the McKinney report was a “damning indictment of the treatment of female players and staff within our organisation”. She added that “disrespectful, demeaning and deeply concerning” behaviour had been allowed to continue for a significant period.

The report found evidence of a “high degree of prejudice towards female staff and players” as well as “antiquated attitudes and behaviour towards women in the game”.

The findings were based on anonymous interviews with 24 individuals, including six current players, and followed 2022’s ‘Changing the Boundaries’ report which identified institutional racism at Cricket Scotland.

Brian, who chaired Cricket Scotland from 2015 to 2022, said: “Sexism and inequality have no place in our society and cricket and proven cases must be addressed. And I fully recognise that some staff in Cricket Scotland were very unhappy in their work in 2021, something I deeply regret.

“While clearly acknowledging those, I do however have serious concerns with some of the conclusions reached in the McKinney review, its selective use of interviewees and its admitted absence of investigative rigour.”

Brian criticised the fact that only three former staff were included in the survey and that conclusions were drawn based on “informal” methodology.

“No attempt has been made to gather readily available evidence from others who were close to the individual issues,” he added. “An example of the danger of the McKinney review trying to make conclusions without investigation is its contention that Cricket Scotland did not devote enough attention and resource to women and girls’ cricket up until 2022 and that amounted to inequality.

“That conclusion is reached without (a) speaking to the people who set the strategy for women and girls‘ cricket and who allocated the resources of Cricket Scotland at the time; (b) analysing key metrics such as the trends in participation or of budget spend; or (c) measuring the improvement in national team performances.”

Brian pointed out that participation had grown from “a hundred or so players” in 2015 to “approaching 1,000 women and girls’ participants across all formats in 2023”.

He added that there was now a Scottish player in the Indian Women’s Premier League and eight in the Hundred in England – “performance standards that are light years away from 2015″.

“These improvements were as a result of a long-term strategy established in 2016/17 which invested in the essential building blocks of club and school structures, of coaching expertise, of a range of playing opportunities and of a wider and deeper talent pool, all to create a sustainable and long-term future for women and girls’ cricket,” he added.

“Those who read the McKinney review need to look at the conclusions with high degree of caution as some lack the supporting investigative work and evidence required.”

The report made nine recommendations, including an uplift in funding to match the men’s structure, a game-wide education programme and more diverse committee structures at club level. Brian, who previously criticised the methodology report into racism, retired in March 2022 for what Cricket Scotland described at the time as health reasons, five days after Gus Mackay quit as chief executive amid reports of a culture of bullying.