By Donald Duff
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) is at it again and this time they have managed to get the backs up of their major sponsor Digicel.
The “proud sponsors of West Indies cricket,” are not as much proud of as upset with the WICB over its decision to enter into a separate agreement with the Stanford Twenty20 organisation.
The Sir Allen Stanford-led organization; the WICB and the England Cricket Board (ECB) have entered into an agreement which will see a Stanford Superstars team taking on England in Antigua in November for a US$20m winner-take-all prize.
The WICB has stated that they were paid US$2m as a licensing fee for sanctioning the tournament and that the board stands to receive one million US dollars a year for the next four years.
West Indies Cricket Board president Dr. Julian Hunte, its CEO Dr. Donald Peters, Sir Allen Stanford and Chief Executive of the ECB David Collier met at Lord’s on April 21 following discussions between Stanford and the ECB the previous week after which details of the match were released.
“This agreement with Stanford Twenty20 complements the one signed in London among the WICB, the ECB and Stanford Twenty20,” Hunte said adding, “Together they will be worth about US$33.5m to the WICB over the five year period.
But the telecommunications giant yesterday was upset with the WICB for, among other things, not communicating with their major sponsor on the issue stating that they had to learn of the event through media reports.
Yesterday Digicel issued a press release which stated that the WICB had….“entered into a separate agreement with a third party which wholly compromises the exclusive rights granted to Digicel as principal sponsor of West Indies Cricket.”
Digicel and the WICB had entered into a five year US$20m contract which was to end in January 2010 but last year the two organizations met and extended the contract to run until 2012.
Digicel’s head of sponsorship Keiran Foley last evening told Stabroek Sport that the company has exclusive rights which should be respected. “We strongly believe our rights must be respected. We have an agreement with the WICB which is sacrosanct and must be respected,” Foley said.
Foley, added:” We support the event. We don’t have a problem with the event. But we have sole, exclusive rights by virtue of our Sponsorship Agreement with the West Indies Cricket Board and we are looking for that agreement to be honoured and to ensure our rights are protected.”
Foley said the WICB did not inform them of the agreement with the Stanford Organisation and that they had to learn of the event through the media.
“The WICB did not inform us. We learnt of the event through media reports. We should not have to be informed through the media,” said Foley who added that as a result they were forced to enter into a dispute resolution process with the WICB.
“We are very hopeful that the matter will be resolved soon but the WICB obviously does not share the same viewpoint as we do,” Foley said.
Recently former West Indies fast bowler Eldine Baptiste was named head coach and Roger Harper as his deputy of the Stanford Superstars team.
