Griffith to tackle WI players’ retainer pacts

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados: New West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) President Teddy Griffith on Saturday listed returning the West Indies to a world top-three rating within the next two years among his top priorities. Griffith, elected president of the WICB last Tuesday, spoke at a press conference at the Kensington Oval, where he charted the immediate course for his board of directors and the WICB’s secretariat. “By June 2005, I would wish to have the West Indies senior team consolidate its position among the three top ranked countries in both Test and One-Day International (ODI) cricket,” Griffith told reporters. Griffith, who beat former WICB vice-president Clarvis Joseph 9-4 in Tuesday’s poll for the presidency, listed five categories of challenges facing the WICB - corporate governance, the team’s performance on and off the field, the WICB’s financial profile and performance, investment in cricket development, and the Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007. “Despite signs of emergence over the past few years as a competitive force in world cricket, the performance of the West Indies senior team has been inconsistent and spotty,” Griffith said.

He urged the West Indies  team to use the next 12 months of a very challenging schedule of international tours to “cement and procure consistent winning habits and performances.” Concluding a collective bargaining agreement with the West Indies Players Association (WIPA), and the long promised retainer contracts for regional players are off-the-field matters Griffith wants to address with urgency.  While the WICB is showing signs of profitability and anticipated to stay on that path through next year, Griffith expressed concern that losses are projected for the subsequent financial years. “The board continues to suffer a large cumulative financial deficit and the preliminary figures made available to me indicate a further unacceptable deterioration in the company’s financial profile is anticipated in the two following years, ending September 2005, and September 2006, unless immediate firm corrective action is taken,” Griffith said. The former WICB marketing executive said his aim is to return the WICB to a path of sustainable profitability, through identification of new sources of revenue building to go with already established methods. Griffith declared that effective management for CWC 2007 provides the opportunity to generate the largest one-time economic benefits and exposure to the countries of the Caribbean and to West Indies cricket. The new president said regional facilities to stage CWC 2007 will require substantial redevelopment and refurbishing. He conceded that the time scale facing the region is “extremely challenging” and said he is setting June 2005 as a point at which he expects “a 60 per cent state of readiness for hosting of the CWC 2007 at all selected venues.”