The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) will be hoping that the newly elected government of T&T, comes on board and assist them with the upcoming Nagico Super50 tournament which will be staged in T&T and St. Kitts.
The T&T Cricket Board (TTCB) acting on behalf of the WICB had negotiated a three-year deal with the former government at a cost of US$1M per year however information coming to hand is that monies promised were only delivered for the first year and the WICB has had to foot the bill since then.
WICB director and president of the TTCB Azim Bassarath revealed yesterday that in 2013 the then government through invesTT had promised to come on board as a sponsor of the Super50 tournament with the knowledge that the first three years of the tournament will be staged in T&T. “We were able to engage the former government for three years at the start of the new tournament,” said Bassarath. We met with invesTT because they were serious about getting foreign investors to come into T&T and we told them of the powerful vehicle that cricket was and they agreed.
“With the matches being televised ‘live’ it was an ideal opportunity for the government to showcase the country to the world. They agreed and one million US dollars was paid for the first tournament. We had problems in collecting the funds as invesTT did not pay but got four government ministries to give the WICB US$250,000 each. The board had to wait a year for the money.”
This year the tournament was staged in T&T but the WICB did not receive any money from the government. Bassarath continued :”The WICB did not get any money from the government for the tournament in 2015 but we decided that because of what was promised to continue with the tournament here. “The WICB under president Dave Cameron decided that the cricket will still be played here and it was a tremendous success. The board took care of the costs. “Here comes a situation agains where the WICB has kindly decided to award a Group and the knockout stages of the 2016 tournament to Trinidad and Tobago. The other group will be played in St. Kitts where that government has been putting in their funds. “Our marketing committee at the TTCB will soon draft a proposal to be sent to the new government with the hope that they can come on board and see the value of what is being presented to them and assist accordingly.
“Only last week the decision was made to grant T&T nine matches including the semi-finals and the finals and hence we are looking to go to the government to seek US$1M in investment. I can’t see why the government would not support this because the last one paid US$4.5M for three T20 matches. Here is a situation where you have nine matches of longer duration, so that you have more airtime to sell the country to foreign investors and the cost is just US$1M.