Yorkshire today announced that Stewart Regan, currently managing director of the Football League Championship, has been appointed to succeed Colin Graves as the county club's chief executive.

Born in the market town of Crook in Bishop Auckland, Regan now lives in Roundhay, Leeds and although his starting date with Yorkshire has yet to be confirmed, it is hoped he will be able to take up his appointment before the

beginning of the new season.

Regan, 41, was being introduced to Yorkshire's staff for the first time today at the newly-named Headingley Carnegie Stadium, where Yorkshire and parent

company Leeds CFAC yesterday revealed plans that will make both the rugby and cricket stadia among the best in world sport.

Leeds CFAC chief executive Gary Hetherington said it was a

significant development for both cricket and rugby that a new

partnership agreement had been signed with Leeds Metropolitan University and that the complex would now be called the Headingley Carnegie Stadium.

It is a ten-year deal with the option of a further five years and has been a major factor in cementing the

purchase of the freehold of the cricket ground by Yorkshire from Leeds CFAC.

Former athletics star Brendan Foster, chancellor of Leeds Met University, said the deal was a

fantastic example of a sporting

partnership taking place off the field. The ambition had been to

relocate part of the Carnegie faculty to Headingley and the plan had flourished.

Foster said there had been a danger Headingley would lose Test cricket and added: "Thank God people saw sense and that Yorkshire's purchase of the ground went through, so

saving Test cricket for Yorkshire and the north of England.

"Sporting partnerships are the future of sport and they need to push forward. Headingley is a theatre of sporting dreams but we have to move on and I would like to see it turned into a dream factory, a place where dreams can be turned into reality."

Yorkshire chairman Robin Smith said that the Carnegie stand, which was currently being erected on the rugby side, was both a viewing area for rugby and a college for Leeds Met.

The north-south stand, which rugby and cricket share, was built in the 1930s but is now "shot through" and needs replacing.

Talks are taking place with several organisations, including Sport England, and the aim is for Yorkshire and Leeds CFAC to build a new stand with a tunnel down the middle with cricket on one side and rugby on the other.

The new stand would provide Yorkshire with 3,000 additional seats, taking the capacity to 20,000 and putting Headingley into the mainstream of big grounds.

The third and final stage of Yorkshire's development will be a new pavilion and media centre at the Kirkstall Lane end of the ground and Smith said this would be similar in design to the facilities at Melbourne Cricket Ground.

"This is the dawn of a new era and I don't know of any other sporting arrangement of three equal partners," said Smith.

"It will provide us with one of the finest sporting centres in the world."