Digicel, C&W Reject Caricom Plan

Caricom's attempt to broker a truce in the West Indies sponsorship dispute fell flat on its face Friday night when the two companies at the center of the storm both rejected recommendations handed down by Grenadian prime minister Dr Keith Mitchell.

Just hours after Mitchell outlined a list of suggestions/recommendations from the Caricom sub-committee on cricket, Digicel and Cable & Wireless issued separate statements to spurn the offer.

"Digicel does not accept the arbitration process as suggested by the Prime Ministerial Sub-Committee on cricket pertaining to items a, b, c, d, e, and f. This was conveyed to the committee last Monday, as this will only allow continued ambush marketing by Cable and Wireless," Digicel declared.

Moments later, Cable & Wireless' reaction was issued with the key line: "As for the contract terms suggested in the Prime Ministers? statement, we believe we can reach agreement on many. However, we cannot accept those proposed concessions that undermine our ability to support our World Cup 2007 sponsorship, or our commitments to all our contracted players."

Cable & Wireless said it would however agree to meet with the proposed independent assessor to further discuss the contract terms.

Digicel accused its bitter rival of "deliberately" inking personal sponsorship contracts with six West Indies players after walking away from sponsoring the team. "C&W did this in the full knowledge that their actions would create great difficulty for the WICB, the six players and the title sponsor, Digicel."

In the midst of its negotiations with the WICB for the title sponsorship Digicel said it approached Brian Lara and offered "an enhanced individual sponsorship contract" when his existing contract with C&W was due to end in September 2005.

"This approach to representatives of Mr. Lara was made in an effort to solve the contract issue and in the interests of West Indies cricket. Unfortunately these efforts were not responded to and in 2004, Mr. Lara extended his C&W contract to a period beyond 2005," the company said.

Digicel also made it clear Cable & Wireless chose to invest US$500,000 in sponsoring a select group of individual players in the full knowledge that this was "unacceptable."

For its part, C&W said it welcomed sections of Caricom's position, particularly the insistence that the WICB "...no longer exclude the seven players with Cable & Wireless contracts from the squad selected to prepare for the impending tours."

"We believe that to deprive the fans of West Indies cricket from seeing a team including the best players available was a shortsighted act. And to deprive those players of the ability to earn their living as punishment for signing totally legal and acceptable personal endorsement contracts was completely unacceptable," Cable & Wireless said.