A group of former Sussex players and sponsors have written an open letter, urging the board of directors to resign after the club was placed in special measures by the ECB over alleged financial mismanagement.
Sussex were handed a 12-point deduction for the upcoming season of the County Championship earlier this week, as well as two-point penalties in the T20 Blast and One Day Cup. They also entered into a three-year financial framework agreement with the ECB, to gain access to "exceptional funding" after experiencing significant operating losses.
In response to those measures, a group of past and present figures in the club, led by former sponsor Ian Poysden, published an open letter to Sussex's board of directors ahead of a members meeting on Monday, urging the club's board of directors to step down. The signatories of the letter include former England Test players Matt Prior and Chris Adams, as well as central figures in the club's history.
Speaking to Wisden.com, Poysden said: "We’ve got to a point with the very strong list of names we’ve got that we’re not prepared to sit back and watch it anymore. All of those players and sponsors have decided that they need to make representation that we think the board should resign.
"Sometimes you’ve got to say what you think. When the club that you love is at a very low ebb then some action needs to be taken. It’s a real terrible shame, really, but hopefully we will achieve the outcome that we want because there are still a lot of very good people at Sussex."
A big group of former Sussex players, sponsors and club grandees have written an open letter calling for the entire board of the club to resign amid their financial difficulties, which have led to a points deduction pic.twitter.com/TzAps9DH4e
— Will Macpherson (@willis_macp) February 6, 2026
Sussex's financial situation has worsened over the last two years. In 2024, they reported operating losses of £297,000, while their player salary bill has ballooned. Under the ECB's financial framework, the club will have restrictions placed on it's men's player salary costs for the next three seasons. Sussex were promoted to Division One in 2024, and finished fourth in the competition last year.
There has also been significant turnover within the club at a board level, with chief executive Pete Fitzboydon resigning from his role last summer for undisclosed reasons. Mark West was appointed to replace him in an interim capacity, with Sussex confirming this week that he would stay in charge as the club entered their agreement with the ECB. The main target of the letter's signatories, however, appears to club chair, Jon Filby.
"You’ve got a chairman who it’s quite clear cannot chair a board of directors to achieve the correct outcomes," says Poysden. "He [Filby] is not a businessman. There’s no doubting that he is a cricket fan, no one is going to question that, but he is not capable of chairing a board of directors.
"The communication to sponsors, stakeholders and members has been generally very poor. Financially, as you can see from the position that we’re in, to have a players budget that is so high that the success we’ve had seems questionable at best. But there are many other things. There’s even problems with the catering contract. Commercially, the local business community, which has always been very strong at Sussex, you can see on the letter that a lot of local business people who have previously been involved in the club have signed the letter. There’s just very poor engagement."
Poysden is the former chairman of IEP Financial Ltd, who sponsored the club for 24 years. "We were bought out three years ago, so that sponsorship finished after all that time," he says. "We didn’t even get a letter of thanks. That in itself isn’t crucial, but does reflect how poorly the local business community have been treated. Many sponsors have walked away because of a lack of engagement and things of that nature.
"There are a lot of disillusioned business people, who really have supported Sussex over the years but are reluctant now because they don’t trust the board of directors to spend that money wisely. That’s why we’re at this juncture now with a very high wage bill, and the poor players now are stuck with these financial measures and the deducted points, that’s not hugely motivating for anyone."
The board of directors and the Sussex membership, including signatories of the letter calling for their resignation, are set to meet on Monday. A members forums hosted by West, Filby and men's team head coach Paul Farbrace, will be an opportunity for transparency. Ahead of that forum, Sussex released a video interview on social media with West.
"Being transparent is my style," West said in the video. "Being open to supporters is what I want to be in terms of how Sussex found itself in this situation. It went for a growth strategy, and there’s nothing wrong with that. They came up from the second division into the first division of the County Championship. They wanted to build on that, build on that success and growth. What conspired against it was the cost base, so the cost of that growth.
"That was both internal factors and external factors. There were things like the rise in National Insurance, the rise in the cost of everything as supporters and fans will know. There were some own goals and some mistakes that were made in terms of cost control and maybe some decisions around what to try and do in terms of events that didn’t come off. Lessons have been learned from those."
Sussex also provided Wisden.com with a statement. "We’re aware of the Open Letter and the strength of feeling it reflects," it read. "The Club’s immediate focus is on engaging directly with members at the forthcoming Members Forum, where these issues can be discussed openly and constructively."
For Poysden and others who signed the letter, however, trust between the club's board and its community has been irrevocably broken.
"In any business situation, if a board of directors get something this badly wrong, why should we trust them to get us out of it?" says Poysden. "I’ve been close enough to cricket my whole life, I know how cricket works. I’m not professing that I’m the person who can save the day. I’m not doing this to become chairman of the club, I’m doing this because this is the club I love. I’m not prepared to sit back and watch any further."
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