Stanford rejects Digicel contract offer

The row between the West Indies Cricket Board and its major sponsors, Digicel, rumbles on after demands made by Digicel in relation to the forthcoming Stanford 20/20 for 20 were rejected by the Stanford organisers.

The board has been at loggerheads with Digicel regarding branding for the Stanford tournament for some time, culminating in Digicel taking out injunctions at London's High Court.

Digicel proposed a three-point compromise to the WICB earlier this month, and on Thursday Stanford officials sent back a counter-offer stating that they would not do any deals with Digicel's competitors, would pay all Digicel's costs, and would give the company some branding rights at the 2008 event.

However, the latter point was rejected out of hand, with Digicel maintaining that it wanted the same branding on Stanford Superstars shirts as it has on the full West Indies shirts for the next five years.

The main disagreement comes over the status of the tournament. Digicel maintains it is an official WICB event with a representative national team, and as such, under the terms of its contract with the WICB, that would give it full branding rights. Stanford insists that it is an unofficial team and, as such, is outside any existing WICB-Digicel agreement.

"The Superstars team is selected solely by Stanford 20/20 and Stanford 20/20 is not willing to gift to Digicel valuable rights to which it is simply not entitled and which Stanford 20/20 intends to sell as part of a presenting sponsor package for the Stanford Super Series," a Stanford spokesman said, accusing the telecommunications giant of continuing "to insist on receiving commercial rights to the Stanford Super Series which are way in excess of its contractual entitlements".