Vin­ode Mam­chan

Up un­til late last night, the Guyana Crick­et Board (GCB) still had not signed a pro­pos­al giv­en to them by the West In­dies Play­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (WIPA) paving the way for the play­ers to par­tic­i­pate in the Air­tel Cham­pi­ons League crick­et se­ries in South Africa. Guyana won the right to rep­re­sent the re­gion in the Air­tel Club Cham­pi­ons League af­ter de­feat­ing Bar­ba­dos by one-wick­et in the fi­nal of the re­gion­al T20 crick­et se­ries in Trinidad and To­ba­go a week ago. On their re­turn home last Sun­day night they signed the par­tic­i­pa­tion con­tract, pend­ing the Guyana Crick­et Board (GCB) ne­go­ti­at­ing the terms and con­di­tions with WIPA.

A copy of the let­ter sent by the Guyana play­ers to the Guyana Crick­et Board. Click Here for let­ter

The Guyana Crick­et Board had some is­sues with the mon­e­tary al­lo­ca­tion and this is what de­layed the sign­ing of the par­tic­i­pa­tion con­tracts. How­ev­er, a deal was struck be­tween the GCB and the play­ers and the GCB then agreed to meet with WIPA to dis­cuss the fi­nal terms and con­di­tions. The GCB then con­tact­ed WIPA and with­in a day a draft con­tract was sent back to the GCB and they had un­til Wednes­day 5 pm to sign off on it. This dead­line was giv­en by of­fi­cials of the Cham­pi­ons League. The con­tract drawn up by WIPA for the play­ers will re­sult in the play­ers and the re­spec­tive board shar­ing the par­tic­i­pa­tion fee 50-50. They will then share the prize mon­ey 75-25 with the play­ers get­ting the larg­er share.

An­oth­er fac­tor in the equa­tion now is that the West In­dies Crick­et Board (WICB) wants in on a por­tion of the par­tic­i­pa­tion fee. They sent out a re­lease in­di­cat­ing that the par­tic­i­pa­tion fee is for the WICB to nom­i­nate a team from the West In­dies to par­tic­i­pate in the tour­na­ment. As a re­sult of in­cur­ring costs of just over US$2 mil­lion in stag­ing the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Caribbean Twen­ty/20 2010 Tour­na­ment, it has de­cid­ed to re­tain part of the fee. The board in­di­cat­ed that it will keep a third of the fee and it will give the re­main­ing two thirds to the GCB as a re­sult of the Guyana team emerg­ing win­ner of the Caribbean Twen­ty/20 2010 Tour­na­ment and be­ing nom­i­nat­ed to rep­re­sent the West In­dies in the Air­tel Cham­pi­ons League.

At present it is un­der­stood that the Guyana play­ers are frus­trat­ed and have been en­quir­ing from those in the know, the lat­est with this sit­u­a­tion. It is al­so un­der­stood that the Cham­pi­ons League of­fi­cials are eye­ing the sit­u­a­tion very keen­ly and if with­in the next few days a deal can­not be struck be­tween the GCB and WIPA, the Guyanese play­ers could miss out in par­tic­i­pat­ing in the tour­na­ment.