ST. JOHN'S, Antigua (CMC):

Bruce Aanensen, chief executive officer of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), will have to wait until this weekend to find out if the directors of the regional governing body have accepted his resignation.

The WICB has pushed back its directors meeting in Barbados until Saturday at which time Aanensen's resignation will be discussed.

Aanensen offered to resign as CEO in a disagreement with the new administration - headed by St. Lucia's Julian Hunte - over World Cup payments to players. Aanensen was hired in February this year, but the last few weeks have been quite uncomfortable for him.

The former banking executive has made it no secret that he disapproved of Hunte's decision to appoint Dinanath Ramnarine, executive president of the West Indies Players' Association, as a WICB director.

Public dispute

This came on the heels of a very public dispute with Ramnarine and Aanensen, the former manager of the Trinidad & Tobago Soca Warriors to the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, felt the decision undermined his ability to properly manage the WICB.

At the heart of his decision to quit is his firm belief that issuing the payments to players for the 2007 World Cup staged in the Caribbean could put him - and indeed the WICB - in legal hot water. He reportedly wrote in his letter of resignation that he was "caught between a rock and a hard place" - Hunte's directive to pay the players or facing legal problems if he went ahead and issued payments.

At least one player, however, has objected to the payment structure for the World Cup which Hunte believes the player should take up with WIPA - who negotiated on the behalf of all the players - and not the WICB.

WIPA insisted on a tiered payment structure (senior players on a higher pay scale) during an arbitration hearing over the matter with the WICB, but the player feels this will leave him several thousand US dollars out of pocket.