Logie: Money Was 'Apartheid' Deterrent

Fri, Dec 3, '04

 

Former West Indies middle order batsman Gus Logie says the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) still owes the 1983 World Cup cricket team money for retaining their services.

Logie who coached the regional side to the ICC Champions Trophy title, was responding to a published report that the ?Greats? from the 1983 Clive Lloyd team signed retainer contracts with the WICB, when their services were being sought by top officials from South Africa.

Logie said: ?We were at the Cavendish Hotel in England in 1983 just before the start of the World Cup, when two officials from South Africa entered the room where we were having our team meeting to speak to us.

?What they told Clive was that they wanted this team to visit South Africa after the World Cup to play a series of matches.?

Reports said that players were each offered US$100,000 to play in the series.

However, Logie said: ?I don?t know about US$100,000 being offered, what I know is that they told Clive just call your price and they were willing to pay.

?At that time the manager of the team was Stephen Camacho and he was in contact with the West Indies Cricket Board of Control (WICBC), who immediately sent up retainer contracts for the players to sign.

?Each man was offered (varying) amounts of money?depending on their seniority?for a period of up to three years.

?We all signed the contracts and to date all I have received is about US$4,000. This is way below what we were offered by the Board.?

The report stated that the WICBC offered the players US$15,000 a year.

?If the Board has paid the dues then somebody has my money,? a laughing Logie remarked, adding: ?What the Board told us at that point was that in due course the money would be added to our Players Provident Fund. This was not done and up until this day the Board still owes money to the team.?

Logie said, ?At that point in time the money being offered by the Board was not the important factor in us not going down there (South Africa) to play.

?The guys were really against going down there due to the apartheid system practised and hence they stayed on to play for the West Indies.

?Some people on the said team went to South Africa at a later date though.?

Logie, elaborating on the question of money and promises made by the board, said: ?We were always promised increases in our salaries for doing well and was not given this by the Board. We stayed focused and played the game for the betterment of the sport in the Caribbean.

?Now a new wind is blowing and hopefully what happened to the players in the past would not happen now.?

* SOURCE: Trinidad Guardian.