Griffith
ST. JOHN'S, Antigua, CMC:
THE WEST Indies Cricket Board (WICB), while naming the squad for the VB Tri-Nation Series in Australia, acknowledged late Friday that there are a number of unresolved issues in their contract dispute with the players.
A press release from the WICB even suggested that some issues were agreed on only because they pertained only to the forthcoming tour 'Down Under'.
"The WICB said that there were a number of issues still unresolved and it had agreed to the terms and conditions outlined for the tour on the basis that some of them were applicable only for this VB triangular series," the release stated.
"This had also been done in the spirit of compromise urged by the CARICOM Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Cricket," the release said.
The West Indies' tour of Australia had been threatened as most of the senior players, including double world record holder Brian Lara, stayed away from a training camp because of a conflict between WIPA and the WICB over personal endorsements.
The players felt that they risked losing their image rights because of their contracts with Cable & Wireless, the rival company of Digicel, the board's new sponsor.
The board said Friday evening that it was "encouraged by the fact that its major sponsor Digicel had accepted a warranty clause, inserted in the Match/ Tour contract for the VB Series as a short-term measure, in the interest of sending the best team to the Series".
This clause is intended to ensure that, during this tour, there will be no actions taken to damage the interests of the sponsor.
The WICB president, Teddy Griffith, has written to the chairman of the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on Cricket, the Grenada Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Mitchell, urging him to follow up on his stated commitment to discuss with Cable and Wireless, the implications coming out of the warranty included in the players Match/Tour contract for the Australia tour.
In a response to the WICB president's letter, the prime minister said that, in his discussions with Cable and Wireless, he had been assured that the company accepted that the West Indies Cricket Board had sole copyright of West Indies Cricket and anything pertinent thereto.
He had been further assured that Cable and Wireless would do nothing in the future to display any advertisement, both in the electronic and print form, to give the impression that any relationship between itself and any of the players (both individually and collectively) was in their capacity as members of the West Indies Cricket team.
In his letter, Griffith had reiterated that the board accepted unequivocally the ruling of the adjudicator, acting Chief Justice of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) Justice Adrian Saunders, with respect to the interpretation of clause 1k of previous WICB Match/ Tour Contracts, which revolves around the issue of personal endorsements and team sponsorship.
The clause had been referred to adjudication following the first meeting between the board and the West Indies Players' Association (WIPA) and the CARICOM sub-Committee on November 26 at Prime Minister Mitchell's office.
MEDIATION
Mediation had been agreed to following WIPA's instruction to its members not to sign letters of invitation issued by the board to attend a training camp prior to the Australian tour and indicate their availability for the tour.
Griffith had pointed out to the prime minister, the deficiency in not having had an examination of the personal endorsement contracts of the seven players who signed with Cable and Wireless.
Such an examination was important in order to ensure that, in keeping with the adjudicator's decision, those endorsement contracts were unquestionably in the nature of individual contracts and contained no provisions which required the players to be linked to the West Indies cricket team in the performance of their contractual obligations.
Griffith encouraged the prime minister to use his good offices to put a process in place to correct this deficiency.
In announcing the team, Griffith said that on another fundamental issue, although the board had accepted the warranty in the VB Series contract in the spirit of compromise, the board was serving notice in respect of the continuing discussions on the unresolved issues, that it would not under any conditions accept that it did not own the rights to the West Indies team.
Additionally, he said, the board maintained that it had the sole right to select and determine the criteria for selection of the West Indies Cricket team, which by necessity must include the player's ability to fulfill the contractual obligations required by the Board.
The WICB, the president said, was determined to do all in its power to settle all the outstanding issues by January 31 2005, long before the start of the Digicel Home Series against South Africa and Pakistan, commencing in late March.
