Rowley: CARICOM to challenge CWI in court

Speaking on local radio here, Rowley said CARICOM had already sought legal advice and had been assured there was a case to be argued on the basis of CWI, as a private entity, continuing to manage cricket, which constituted a public good.

In fact, Rowley indicated that he would soon be speaking to St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves — the chairman of CARICOM’s subcommittee on cricket — to also get him to engage the matter.

“The CARICOM Secretariat was told by the CARICOM leaders, ‘go and get legal advice on this very fundamental point: where did West Indies Cricket Board or whoever it is get this asset called West Indies Cricket Inc and who really owns West Indies cricket’,” Rowley said.

“And until we are prepared to address that issue, what is going on now will continue and get worse and worse until what I predicted (West Indies’ relegation into a Division Two) is likely to happen.” He continued: “We got a legal view. The Secretariat indicated that one of our Trinidad lawyers gave a legal opinion that there is an arguable case that West Indies Cricket is a public good and therefore there is a role for the region’s leadership to get involved because the game is destroyed and that could be argued in any court of law.

“I think the CARICOM has that position.

The Secretariat has indicated to me that the advice indicates that CARICOM proceed along that line and I expect that when Prime Minister Gonsalves gets over his current personal difficulty (bereavement) at home and we focus on this issue, we will be able to look at some focused response to the existing hijacking of West Indies cricket.” CARICOM has sought to intervene in the sport ever since the controversial abandoned tour of India in 2014 which resulted in CWI being slapped with a US$42 million claim in damages by the Indian Cricket Board (BCCI).

The body subsequently commissioned a study by a Governance Review panel of eminent persons, headed by UWI Cave Hill Principal Professor Eudine Barriteau, which found the CWI structure to be “antiquated”, “obsolete” and “anachronistic” and recommended the “immediate dissolution of the West Indies Cricket Board and the appointment of an Interim Board.” CWI, then named the West Indies Cricket Board, subsequently resisted the move, with Rowley noting that the main tenet of their argument as the fact they were a private body.

“Mr (Dave) Cameron (CWI president) and his people told us to our face they are not accepting that (recommendation) because West Indies cricket is really West Indies Cricket Inc, meaning a corporate body incorporated and they are beholden to their shareholders and not to any CARICOM leadership,” Rowley charged.

The impasse between CWI and CARICOM has dragged on since, resulting in the resignation last year of Grenada’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell as chairman of the subcommittee on cricket and Gonsalves assuming the post.

Rowley, who along with Mitchell raised the crisis of West Indies cricket at last weekend’s CARICOM Summit in Grenada, said it was critical that his colleagues pressed the matter of CWI’s right to manage for the sake of the region. (CMC