Caribbean leaders urge renegotiation of CPL-CWI contract

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC)

The lucrative Caribbean Premier League (CPL), which began 11 years ago, has come under the microscope at the Caricom conference on West Indies cricket in Trinidad with government leaders urging the parties to renegotiate the contract for the Twenty20 tournament.

The CPL is the premier T20 tournament that takes place in the West Indies every year, enabling elite players from the Caribbean and around the world to participate annually.

“Who signs a 50-year contract?” former West Indies captain Sir Clive Lloyd asked during a panel discussion.

Barbados prime minister, Mia Mottley, and her Trinidad & Tobago counterpart, Dr Keith Rowley, insisted that the contract must be renegotiated.

Guyana president Dr Irfaan Ali said the CPL was “an opportunity”, and it was important for all parties to work together to expand and build on the opportunity to lead the CPL into the best form of franchise cricket.

“In Guyana, we are working with Cricket West Indies, and CPL and the ICC to launch a new product for the region that will position the region in the global market,” he added.

Discussing the state of West Indies cricket at the two-day conference, being held under the theme ‘Reinvigorating West Indies Cricket’, Lloyd said that if CWI were running the CPL, the players might have been receiving more money that could help the development of the sport in the region.

“But we sign a 50-year contract,” he said. “It isn’t funny. Now, if we were running our own CPL, we would have been able to give more money to the players, and they probably would want to play with us much longer. But, again, how can a board sit down and negotiate that. It is still a mystery to me.”

Mottley said it is important to have a relook at the contract.

“I think that is why we need to see it, we need to see if there is a restraint of trade, and we need to use the leverage of the power of any right to reopen, and there is no simple way around it other than that,” Mottley said.

Barbadian business executive Peter Griffith said it was important for CWI to “manage our destiny”.

“We need to hire the professionals that can manage our business,” he said. “We need to have a commercial section who can deal with high-powered people, who can negotiate properly because … we are accustomed to small money, we accept small money, and as a result, the big people make the big money out of us.”

CWI president, Dr Kishore Shallow, said this was the 12th year of the CPL contract, “and what we have been doing over the years is engaging the members on how Cricket West Indies could benefit more”.