Allen Stanford: a sorry tale of greed and shame
The behaviour of those infatuated by Stanford's riches was, frankly, the worst aspect of the whole saga: from the ECB officials, who fawned over him when he descended the steps of his helicopter at Lord's, to the former greats, who knelt down and
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
The behaviour of those infatuated by Stanford's riches was, frankly, the worst aspect of the whole saga: from the ECB officials, who fawned over him when he descended the steps of his helicopter at Lord's, to the former greats, who knelt down and polished his boots at every opportunity, to the players' representatives, who did their best to catch the wave of excess, writes Michael Atherton in the Times.
When a game is played for money only, it is worthless, and enough people care about the England cricket team not to want to see them playing worthless fixtures. The England cricket team mean an awful lot to an awful lot of people and they do not like it when they see something valuable, something that represents them, reduced to a rich man's plaything.
It's not just the cricketers who are suffering. Soccer star Michael Owen and golfer Vijay Singh, could also be affected by the Stanford fallout. Kevin Eason has more in the Times.
The Stanford meltdown will have far-reaching consequences for a small country like Antigua but cricket will remain largely unaffected, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian. The suffering of cricket is by comparison small beer and will be most severe on a personal level.
His actual financial stake has been minimal, certainly where the WICB is concerned, an organisation with whom he has been at loggerheads. It agreed a licence fee for his regional competition of $1m per year over five years but he has paid only $2m of that for the two that have been staged. That is it. He paid local cricket associations $100,000 for development purposes during his regional Twenty20 competition and for a while a stipend of $15,000 per month for upkeep of facilities and so forth.
Watching so many anxiety-ridden citizens queue up outside the Bank of Antigua was unnerving, given that so many in the island have invested their money with Stanford, writes Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
A boat builder from the US said he was there to check his funds. “There have been statements from all sorts of people including the Prime Minister but nobody has yet been able to guarantee that my savings are safe,” he said. Only Charlie Baltimore, a taxi driver, seemed sanguine. “I ain’t gonna jump when other people jump,” he said.
In the same paper, Tony Cozier writes that the West Indies Cricket Board can take a few positives from Stanford, particularly his contribution to the impoverished associations which had earlier gained little from the regional board. His impact was felt in other areas too.
Adamant that his Superstars had to defeat England in the $20m match, Stanford ordered them into a preparatory camp for six weeks and appointed a large support of coaches, trainers and physiotherapists to look after them. It was the kind of regime with which West Indian cricketers were unfamiliar. Its advantages were evident in the side’s slick |performance in beating England.
In the Telegraph, Simon Briggs writes that the ECB chairman Giles Clarke, renowned for having an answer to every question, was at a loss for words when grilled over the Stanford dealings.
Kanishkaa Balachandran is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo