By AFP
October 8th 2008 @ 2:48am
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High Court ruling leaves world’s richest match in doubt
Plans for the world’s richest cricket match in Antigua next month were thrown into disarray when the West Indies Cricket Board lost a dispute with sponsors Digicel in London’s High Court.
As a result of the defeat, the WICB was forced to withdraw its sanction for the $US20 million ($A28.2 million) Twenty20 match between the Stanford Superstars XI and England on November 1.
It has cast doubt on whether the match will go ahead at all.
According to cricket website Cricinfo, the decision means the game will either be called off or the Stanford Superstars side will be greatly weakened by the withdrawal of most of the leading West Indian players.
The WICB had previously agreed to make all their players available to play for Texas billionaire Allen Stanford’s select side.
But Digicel went to the High Court in a bid to establish that, as the official sponsor of the WICB, it enjoyed commercial rights associated with a game that was, in effect, a West Indies XI v England.
The High Court upheld that argument and ruled that the Board would be in breach of its contract with Digicel if it sanctioned the match without granting commercial rights to its sponsor.
The WICB was also ordered to pay costs.
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© 2008 AFP
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Greg Russell said | October 8th 2008 @ 1:50pm | Report comment
The genius of Lalit Modi: the organization of the IPL looked a shambles but it never had any problem like this.
I am not a lawyer but presumably Stanford has no choice but to call it off or else offer Digicel a large sum of money. He could try the latter. For example, instead of making it $20m winner takes all, make it $10m winner takes all and pay Digicel $10m. That way it’s the same net cost to Stanford and I’m sure the players will still jump at the chance for a $10m purse.
Or is another option to swallow pride and offer Digicel some commercial rights for the match? After all, this would be free return on zero investment for them.