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WICB loses court case
Stanford 20/20 for 20 in doubt after board loses court case
Martin Williamson
October 7, 2008
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It appeared a win-win situation back in the summer when the match was announced at Lord's ... but now the West Indies are out of pocket and England are left waiting to see if there will be any game at all
© Getty Images
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The West Indies Cricket Board has lost its case with telecommunications company Digicel in London's High Court and has been forced to withdraw its sanction for the Stanford 20/20 for 20 match on November 1.
On the face of it, the decision makes it possible that the game could be off or, if it does proceed, that the Stanford Superstars side will be greatly weakened.
But it is believed there are behind-the-scenes negotiations taking place between Digicel and the Stanford organisers which, if successful, will free the way for the match to go ahead with a full-strength Stanford side. It may mean the team's shirts have Digicel branding and other commercial rights are assigned to the company.
The unquestioned losers are the WICB. Not only did the judgement go against it, it also faces having to pay costs running into hundreds of thousands of dollars, and will also forfeit the US$3.5 million it stood to gain from a share of the US$20 million booty put up by Allen Stanford.
Digicel insiders say the company was angry that it found out about the deal with Stanford through the media and that more would be made public when the full results of the arbitration were announced.
The WICB entered into a contract with Stanford to make all its players available for the event, but it cannot now do so unless an agreement is reached between Digicel and Stanford.
Digicel's case against the board was that if the Stanford match was officially recognised then, as official sponsor to the WICB, it had branding and other commercial rights associated with that deal. The court ruled that the WICB had to remove its sanction for the game as not doing so would put it in breach of contract with Digicel. As this was an arbitration, there is no recourse for the WICB to appeal.
What also has to be confirmed is the position of the England board and how appealing the match will be if it was to be against a second-string side, even if it made the possibility of winning the multi-million dollar jackpot more likely.
Cricinfo has also confirmed that Tony Deyal, who until July was the board's corporate secretary, gave evidence for Digicel against his former employers.
Martin Williamson is executive editor of Cricinfo
© Cricinfo
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Comments have now been closed for this article
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The logic of people arguing here is totally contorted. They seem to be saying that Digicel, for the good of cricket, should let them play as is. Well, Digicel has invested millions in WI cricket, not only for the good of WI cricket, but also as a value proposition to their share holders. Now WI cricket board cuts a deal with Stanford, who then signs up their competitor and Digicel is left holding the bag. This is the same deal with ICL. Players have a choice to play for ICL or under BCCI. They chose ICL. Don't beleive for a minute that ICL is not a competitor to BCCI. They are eating into advertising revenues of BCCI. By playing only T20, they are taking easy money from BCCIs hands. Now people hear argue that BCCI should let players who play in ICL, to play under their domestic structure also. Well, it does not work that way. Even ECB recognizes the danger. Tomorrow a league will start in their own back yard and eat of ECB's lunch and dinner by playing only T20 through out the season.
Posted by BangaloreKid on October 08 2008, 19:15 PM GMT
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Seems to be like Digicel is the good guy here. If Stanford was interested in the good of the game, he should straight away allow for Digicel to be represented wherever it so desires.
And why the hell is England benefiting from this game? Why not the cash strapped boards where there's a large audience for the game. I'm in England and nobody cares for the game anyway.
Posted by thatsy on October 08 2008, 14:30 PM GMT
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Comparisons with ICL are quite incorrect. ICL is not banned in India, its just that ICL players also want to earn their money playing for a rival sponsored tournament. All sporting bodies worldwide are monopolies. I would love to see a rival league to the ECB sponsored one and watch ECB's response to it.
Posted by vswami on October 08 2008, 05:12 AM GMT
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Hi
I have not been able to fathom a few things. How is Digicell the guilty and 'not interested in WI cricket'? It has bankrolled a bottom rung team for a fancy sum, when no-one wanted it. Now, that WI has come into some money, they want them shoved aside. who is guilty?
What about WICB- how can an association sell its merchandise to 2 agencies? Who is greedy? And to claim ignorance and go to court in London- have they got any advisers!- mind boggling. Similar politics like the their world cup.
And to claim it is 'not official' WI representation- Have they heard about something called ICL in India- and realise what happens to people playing the 'not official' tournament. By god- they have to find a brain cell in this WICB- or maybe they care less if the players selected do not play for WI in future- Now, who is interested in future of WI cricket.
I do not know whether this public exhibition is of plain audacity or utter foolishness.
Posted by ndayannanda on October 08 2008, 01:28 AM GMT
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I guess you guys just see the sponsors as the bad guys with deep pockets. They have commercial interests and so far I believe they have been spending big bucks on a bunch of non-performing jokers! Do you really think they should allow Mr Stanford (sorry Sir Allan) to walk all over their commercial rights? I do not believe that he is so deeply interested in WI cricket per se, despite all the hoop la he offers to demonstrate his good intentions. He also has his commercial interests at heart and they are to ultimately sell the TV rights to the USA for billions! Yep just like another company paid one billion for rights to certain games in the sub-continent. It is all about the $$ not the players or the game.
Wake up and see what is actually happening, there are a lot of greedy people snapping at the Stanford $$ and making as eef, did you not watch the Twenty/20 games in Antigua? They were around in abundance!
Posted by bajanbat on October 08 2008, 01:01 AM GMT
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It would be very foolish if it were to be a second string team facing England. This ultimately shows that digicel are not really "proud sponsors of West Indies cricket" for if it were so they won't be on this long road to ensuring their benefits, seeing theat it is the cricket they are more interested in. Or is it actually so??
Posted by kreem on October 07 2008, 23:18 PM GMT
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(continuing from previous post) and those teams should then have been required to wear or sport Digicel paraphanalia (which I doubt they were since Digicel probably didn't care since such teams don't even feature on television). Digicel is missing the woods for trees. If the Stanford XI does well and Stanford's training is shown to be effective, then there would be the possibility for Digicel to have even more exposure come the 2009 World Twenty20 in England (home of Cable and Wireless no less) with a WI team that might advance instead of dropping out early. And if the WI team advanced the name on the shirt would be "Digicel" not "Stanford", so Digicel would benefit as a result of Stanford's pouring money into twenty20 all without Digicel having spent a cent on twenty20.
And Digicel winning this case quickly doesn't actually mean they were in the right legally, just that they had better lawyers. Unless we are to believe that OJ Simpson was really innocent the first time around.
Posted by ChrisH on October 07 2008, 21:59 PM GMT
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by the way anyone realised that the WICB and the JCB have turned a blind eye on the druggy xavier marshall. every other such incident like this i have heard of have resulted in a ban. No, not so for the WICB nor JCB, well then again it seems not to be help then anyway they still lose. maybe that is there problem, they should try the reverse, not taking drugs and see what happens maybe just maybe a test match they play will go aleast 4 days. West indies cricket is full of cheats & gamblers > marlon, drug dealers Xavier and money hungry players, board and sponsor. where is the gentle in the gentleman's game.
Posted by Cleon on October 07 2008, 21:45 PM GMT
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Hang on, this makes no sense. So Digicel now has the right to restrain players' trade based on central contracts? How can that even be possible? Are we to assume then that Dwayne Bravo's participation in the IPL was illegal because of his central contract?
Digicel may have brought more excitement, but it what kind of sponsor intentionally despoils the sponsored party? It's too bad this case can't be appealed because the entire argument being brought makes no sense: Digicel was arguing that the Stanford XI was a representative West Indian team and therefore it had rights over that team, but this is based on the fact that the Stanford XI was made up of West Indians. But that's crap. Firstly, the Stanford XI was open to selection for Bermudians (as a result of Bermuda's participation in the Stanford 2020) who could never play for any "representative WI team". Second, that argument would mean that a number of tour match teams such as the Guyana President's XI were in fact WI teams and .
Posted by ChrisH on October 07 2008, 21:13 PM GMT
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Oh yeah this is a unsanctioned tournament!
Sounds like a shambles to me!
I must say I am a big cricket fan, but I enjoyed the IPL as well!
If you know what I mean!
Posted by asifsarfraz on October 07 2008, 19:58 PM GMT
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