Even given the recent acrimonious history between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA), it is utterly unbelievable that their latest, unnecessary dispute should arise during the staging of our own World Cup.
This is cricket’s premier tournament. It is an opportunity to show off our best qualities.
This is the game for which we have established an enviable record of excellence. We have invited the world to come to enjoy our culture as well.
Governments that have failed at every attempt at meaningful integration have united as one, and invested millions of dollars they can scarcely afford, to ensure that it is the “best World Cup ever”.
It has not been easy. There have been organizational problems, to be sure, but it has all, more or less, come together on the day.
We have been uplifted by a stirring opening ceremony and by a near-flawless performance by the West Indies team that brought a rare victory against Pakistan in the opening match.
This is the stuff of our dreams. Even if we are ahead of ourselves, we could even envisage Brian Lara raising the trophy at Kensington Oval come April 28.
Then, suddenly, we learn in the media that there have been “tension” between the board and the players because contracts for the tournament had not been issued. It was even reported that “the players might threaten to go on strike” if they did not get them.
It was like a blow to the solar plexus. Tension? Strike? Surely not now, not at such a momentous time.
Unfortunately, we should know by now, from bitter experience, better than to take anything for granted once it involves the WICB and the WIPA and contracts and money. World Cup? So what.
The background to the trouble is well known.
Unable to agree on the division of the US$11.5 million that will be paid to each participant by the Inter-national Cricket Council (ICC), the two sides sought binding arbitration to settle the issue.
The panel of Sir David Simmons, Chief Justice of Barbados, Elliott Mottley, former Attorney General of Barbados and Bermuda, and Aubrey Armstrong, ruled that 75 per cent of the payout should go to the board, 22 per cent to the 15 members of the World Cup squad and three per cent distributed to the West Indies’ first-class players. It worked out to individual fees of between US$100,000 and US$170,000 per man, exclusive of any prize money won. No West Indian cricketer has ever been paid so handsomely.
So why have the players had to wait so long for their contracts and why, even after receiving them Friday, were they reluctant to sign them?
It is difficult to understand why they should chose to make an issue of it, why they should be so keen to again expose the board’s inefficiency.
Do they really believe that they won’t receive what is their due?
Tony Deyal, the WICB’s communications and marketing head, explained that the delay was because the board “sought clarification on a number of matters in relation to the recent arbitration.”
“We accepted the arbitration ruling but needed clarification on some issues, but at no point was it ever implied [and the arbitrators knew it] that we were questioning the ruling or our being bound to it,” he stated.
It is understood that contributions to the provident fund are also part of the issue. Whatever, it has thrown a cloud over the World Cup.
Last week, without prior knowledge of the shenanigans in the background, Michael Holding said of the West Indies players in a newspaper interview: “It is all about money, money, money and it is a distraction. I think their focus is in the wrong direction and I don’t think this tournament will change that.”
They were prophetic words.
