On November 10, 2011, The Royal Gazette published a story under the headline “ICC status under threat”, with a subheadline “Loss of clubs could lead to loss of funding”, which raised questions about whether the Bermuda Cricket Board met some of the criteria for associate membership of the International Cricket Council.One criteria concerned staffing of the BCB. The other stated that there must be at least 16 senior cricket teams playing in competitions under the auspices of the BCB as the national governing body for cricket in Bermuda.The concern about staffing has since been resolved, and The Royal Gazette published a clarification on that point on the front page of the Sports section on November 17.The November 10 story reported that the BCB currently has 14 senior teams playing in its competitions, and also carried a statement from the BCB - the sole comment that could be obtained from that organisation at that time that teams in the Commercial Cricket League and Evening Cricket League were also counted by the ICC as senior teams playing in competitions. However, the story went on to report that both organisations considered themselves to be independent of the BCB.On November 16, The Royal Gazette published a story based on an interview with ICC Americas Regional Development Manager Martin Vieira under the headline “No concerns with Bermuda’s status, says ICC boss Vieira”, giving assurances that Bermuda would not lose its status and that there were no current concerns about the number of teams.In the story, Mr Vieira was quoted as saying that the BCB regularly reported 30 to 40 senior teams and that if questions were raised about the eligibility of the teams, the ICC would first ask for a response from the BCB.However, Mr Vieira added: “Teams must play in leagues that come under the auspices of the National Board. We have situations in Canada and the USA where a large number of teams are not counted because they are not members of their national board.”That story also contained a lengthy statement from the BCB disputing the original story.As a result of Mr Vieira’s statement, The Royal Gazette submitted further questions to the BCB relating to the status of the Commercial League and Evening Cricket League and asked for a list of the senior teams which fell under the auspices of the BCB.The BCB did not respond to the submitted questions, but last week released the following e-mail from Mr Vieira in which he reiterated that the ICC had no issue with the number of teams the BCB reported and that the teams can be in more than one competition.He added: “The Associate membership criterion for number of teams does not require teams to be members of a national body. The only instances of cricket teams not included in a country’s total are when the national governing body has de-recognised them.”The Royal Gazette notes that Mr Vieira’s latest statement contradicts his earlier e-mail that teams have to be members of a national board.Notwithstanding that, The Royal Gazette acknowledges that this email constitutes the ICC’s official position, and on that basis acknowledges that the original headline is not now substantiated and was therefore incorrect and that Bermuda’s associate status is not under threat. The Royal Gazette therefore retracts both headlines.The Royal Gazette maintains that every good faith effort was made to get both sides of the story from the beginning, that subsequent stories made clear that the ICC was satisfied with Bermuda’s status, and that the story of November 16 headlined “No concerns with Bermuda status, says ICC boss Vieira” was given equal prominence to the story published on November 10.