BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Regional players union, WIPA, have accused the Guyana Cricket Board (GCB) of pressuring players to sign Airtel Champions League contracts and have expressed surprise by the GCB’s move to file an injunction against them last week.

In a release this week, the Trinidad and Tobago-based organisation said Guyana’s Champion League-bound squad had been given contracts without first having them vetted by WIPA.

Also, the release claimed that what the players received was not fully representative of the complete contract.

“In respect of the Caribbean T20 tournament, players once again played without contracts,” WIPA said.

“However on July 28th 2010 the Guyanese players were given documents relating to the Airtel T20 2010 Champions League and were asked to sign them. These documents consisted of five or six pages out of over 100 pages.

“WIPA had not seen the documents at that time and, the GCB over the next two days repeatedly asked the players to sign the documents.

“The players repeatedly asked the GCB to provide WIPA with the necessary information so that WIPA could advise them but the GCB did not do so and in fact no documents were ever provided by the GCB to WIPA.”

WIPA, who are led by president and chief executive Dinanath Ramnarine, said after Guyana beat Barbados to win the CT20, the winning side was told that if the contracts were not signed Barbados would be sent to the September 10-26 tournament in South Africa.

The players union said players were still unwilling to sign and WIPA advised them not to do so until they had received the missing pages of the contract.

“The Guyana players were reluctant to sign the documents, not only because WIPA had not been provided with copies so as to be able to advise them, but also because the pages provided referred to other documents which were incorporated into the contracts given to the players, and the players had not been given these documents,” WIPA claimed.

“When they asked for them they were told that they were too voluminous. The players consulted WIPA who advised that they not sign until they had had sight of all the documents because in signing they were undertaking to have read and understood all the documents.”

The release said that while the Guyana squad signed the contracts on August 1, the players wrote to the GCB to indicate they had done so without WIPA having seen the full contract, especially in reference to the use of players’ image rights.

At this stage, WIPA said they were forced to write to the GCB and the West Indies Cricket Board to protest the pressure being applied to players and also complain about their exclusion from the process.

WIPA indicated that negotiations which eventually started with the GCB on August 2, stalled days later leading to the intervention of Guyana’s acting Sports Minister Irfaan Ali.

The minister met with the GCB and Guyana captain Ramnaresh Sarwan last Friday to hammer out a deal, a day after the GCB had obtained an injunction against WIPA, Ramnarine and player management company WIPMACOL from interfering in negotiations.

WIPA said on the same day the agreement was reached, they learnt of the injunction that had been obtained by the GCB in the Guyana High Court. “WIPA was stunned by this revelation as it had not, and still has not [up until Monday], been served with any legal documents advising of the injunction and the writ, and to its knowledge, was in negotiation at the time that the injunction was sought and the writ filed, and these negotiations were on the brink of success,” the release asserted.

Under the agreement – which WIPA argued was similar to the one they had proposed –  the GCB will split the participation fee of over US $300 000, which will be forwarded from the WICB, and any prize money won in South Africa will see the players collectively pocket 75 per cent.

The players’ body once again reiterated their right to act on behalf of regional cricketers and said this process had constantly come under threat.

“WIPA is the recognized player representative and in that capacity, contracts are to be forwarded to WIPA and not to the players directly,” the release stressed.

“This procedure is designed to ensure that the players’ consent is informed when given and that player welfare issues, such as insurance, injury payments, drug-testing and yes, match fees, are provided for in the contracts, and that in signing the contracts the players are aware of all of the obligations which they must fulfill.

“However, in recent times, contracts, when they are issued, are given directly to the players without them being forwarded to WIPA.

“In fact the WICB has formed a practice of either refusing to negotiate either in advance with WIPA as required by the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) and the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), or refusing to negotiate at all and in so doing acting contrary to the CBA and MOU.”