Caribbean war of words drags on

The bitter row between the West Indies board (WICB) and the West Indies Players' Association (WIPA) took another twist at the weekend when the board said that it had offered a sum of around $90,000 as a tour guarantee for the Sri Lanka series, a claim vigorously denied by WIPA.

The guarantee was at the heart of the dispute which led to all but three of the named squad refusing to tour. WIPA opened negotiations by asking for a sum of $200,000, a figure which was subsequently reduced to $150,000 and then to $125,000.

Dinanath Ramnarine, WIPA's president, insisted that the board never wavered from offering $50,000, but on Friday, Roger Brathwaite, the WICB's chief executive, told reporters that he had suggested "a proposal in the region of US$80,000-90,000 might be a figure that the board would give some consideration to ,but this was rejected out of hand."

"The board in no correspondence to WIPA indicated that it was willing to move from the $50,000 offer," Ramnarine countered. "In an e-mail received at 7.39pm on June 29, the board stated that it was going to select another team because the players didn't sign and told us that our proposal was too high. They never said they were willing to look at US$80,000 to US$90,000. There seems to be a lot of (unheard of) things being told at this time but the truth will always prevail."

There was, however, some progress with the news that the WICB had sent a signed copy of the Collective Labour Agreement to the WIPA. Ramnarine confirmed that WIPA would be signing the document.