The first time I heard an English cricket administrator mention Sir Allen Stanford’s name was in a hotel lobby in New Zealand in March 2008. The timing was significant because, three weeks earlier in Mumbai, an auction for cricketers joining the new Indian Premier League had generated stunning prices.

Scores of non-Indian players were signed up, most on supercharged salaries, but of these only one was English. The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), fearing the Indian venture would undermine their own fixtures, had refused to release their star players.

Within days Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, was talking of a multinational English competition on the lines of the Indian version. And then, in New Zealand, he mentioned the “S” word. Stanford, like the ECB, had been taken aback by events in India. Amid fanfare, he had funded two Twenty20 seasons in the Caribbean – for small beer by Indian standards – and was eager to reclaim the stage.

Four days after the Indian auction, Stanford made a general offer to an international team to play his Superstars (in effect, a West Indian team) for a stupendous purse of $20m (£14m). “Any time, any place,” he added. In fact, he fixed place and time: Antigua on November 1, the island’s independence day.

England were the first to bite, though it took four months and 100 hours of talks to seal the deal. Stanford wanted his headline-grabbing match but the ECB (forgetting cautionary tales about eggs and baskets) wanted a programme spanning several years to counter the IPL.

What finally pushed the ECB into closing the deal was India, Australia and South Africa creating a Twenty20 Champions League. It was another lucrative opportunity missed. England consummated the shotgun wedding with their Texan amour. They were so dazzled by his seemingly endless riches that they stopped using their eyes or their ears. If love is blind, love of money is blind and deaf.

According to a source, both Clarke and David Collier, the ECB chief executive, were “heavily immersed” in the Stanford deal. Clarke is a flamboyant personality who does not care if he offends purists (hence Stanford’s helicopter being allowed to land at Lord’s) and rarely admits mistakes.

Several associates affirm that Clarke is more executive chairman than chairman. It is the way he has run several successful businesses, and one not-so-successful one, the online recruitment agency StepStone, which he left in 2001, the year before it recorded losses of €220m(£195m). Clarke has just been reelected for a second term as chairman, an unpaid post, after a failed challenge from Lord Marland.

Collier, known as the Fat Controller by critics in tribute to his ample proportions, worked in the travel and leisure industry before administering four first-class county clubs. Since becoming chief executive, he has helped turn a £4.2m loss into a surplus of about £25m.

Clarke and Collier may have been insufficiently mindful of the image of a game that is peculiarly wrapped up in morals. Football can be mired in as many financial scandals as it likes; cricket cannot. Stanford was simply too risky a venture. That should have been clear from the outset.

Frankly, though the pair might deserve dismissal, England can ill afford further management losses. Kevin Pietersen resigned as captain and Peter Moores was removed as coach on January 7; an acting coach is running the team in the West Indies. In an Ashes year, English cricketing strategy lies in tatters.