Behind the Stanford Plan

American Allen Stanford is going to find his likeness to Australian Kerry Packer even more pronounced as oppositional forces gather momentum. On October 3, Stanford, the Antigua-based businessman, announced plans for a 2006 Stanford Twenty20 cricket tournament open to 18 states that form part of the West Indian chain.

The responses to Stanford's US$28 million gala are a 28-year-old mirror to Packer's plan. Cricketers support it, administrators feel threatened, purists deride it as a gaudy circus, commentators feel he should have put his money into a development programme, and journalists, while conceding that West Indies cricket needs this fuel injection, are suspicious of his motives. Who is J Allen Stanford and what is he up to? Stanford and Packer may be more peas than rice in this cook-up.

Michael Manley, Jamaica's prime minister during Packer's foray in 1977, described Packer as flamboyant, with a ready wit, an iron will and automatic good sense. Men like him were adventurers, wrote Manley in "A History of West Indies Cricket," risk-takers who "gambled with their lives and their money". Packer's World Series Cricket rode an undercurrent of baggage from a lost bid for exclusive television rights for Test cricket in Australia. His game was to whip up enough interest to better sell television time. He had the money to do it on a grand scale despite the bitter fight to secure his interests, but his intervention revolutionised the earning potential for cricketers everywhere.

Like Packer, Stanford is a man of money. A US citizen who also holds citizenship of Antigua and Barbuda, he owns Stanford International Bank Limited (SIBL), a company organised under the laws of Antigua and Barbuda (which has a 40% interest in AST Telecom, a US limited liability company). SIBL, in turn, is wholly owned by Stanford International Bank Holdings Limited (SIBHL), also organised under the laws of Antigua and Barbuda. SIBHL is 100 per cent owned by the Stanford Financial Group, a US company that is wholly owned and controlled by Stanford. The company's assets are reportedly more than US$20 billion. He also owns Caribbean Star and Caribbean Sun airlines.

His investments in Antigua have been extensive - his political contributions alone triggering repeated controversies and accusations of bribery. In November 2003, he held a press conference to respond to a charge by the then leader of the opposition (now prime minister), Baldwin Spencer that he had bribed two ministers with EC$100,000 each.

"I have never in my life bribed or done anything illegal or unethical in my business endeavours much less so in Antigua and I will not and have not associated myself with people of that character," he said, and promptly doubled the figure to the men he described as friends who loved the country "just as I do." The money, he said, was to help the people and was not for a land swap as the Opposition had accused.

"Where others have talked and made idle promises, I have delivered. I have invested in this country," he said, listing the contributions he had made for the year of just over EC$4 million. Recipients included the West Indies Cricket Board, the Carnival Development Committee, the Prison, the Christ the King High School, Sailing Week and the Commissioner of Police.

Earlier, in February that year, Prime Minister Lester Bird reminded citizens that, "the Stanford Group has invested almost EC$160 million in Antigua over the last few years." Endorsing and encouraging further investment (Stanford had announced that he would locate the headquarters of the Stanford Caribbean Investment Fund of US$2 billion in Antigua but that is still not off the ground), Bird said that, "Mr Stanford has shown himself to be a fine corporate citizen of Antigua and Barbuda, and we applaud his faith in us as much as we greatly appreciate his readiness to participate fully in our development."

The EC$256 million in development projects that Stanford undertook then, were to "include the establishment of a retail/entertainment village across from the airport terminal at a cost of EC$40 million, development on Maiden Island at a cost of $135 million, and the completion of an FBO to service private aircraft at a cost of approximately EC$7 million."

Packer too had enjoyed prime ministerial support, Australian PM Bob Hawke, telling an audience in June 1987 his pleasure "to be here and sit next to a person whom I am pleased, as Prime Minister of this country, to count as a close personal friend and to measure as a very great Australian, Kerry Packer."

In the transcript of an ABC Four Corners programme (7/4/1997) Packer's political links had been described as crucial in transforming his father's print media company into an entertainment empire. "It was built on businesses that rely on Government licence, primarily TV, telecommunications and gaming. The alliance with the Labor party made for a lucrative decade. Key policy decisions by the Federal Government helped transform his Nine Network into the leader in Australian TV, taking the Packer product into every home in the country."

Stanford too is no stranger to politics and political manoeuvrings. Back in Houston in November 1999, the Stanford Financial Group hired a lobbying firm and began contributing generously to Republican and Democratic party committees, particularly through the loophole created by Section 527 of the Internal Revenue Code, which permitted unlimited donations. According to a consumer rights group called Public Citizen's Congress Watch, the Stanford Group's sole interest was in blocking anti-money laundering legislation being introduced by the Bill Clinton administration. The group did not shy away from citing Antigua as a country with "a reputation as a money-laundering haven."

Like Packer, Stanford might be something of an adventurer. He has displayed the same kind of impatience to get his things done, with similar disregard for rules, authority and bureaucracy. Clearly, he is not afraid of a scrimmage or two along the way to his goals, stated or undeclared. In the case of his 20/20 tournament, there is an impatient edge to his words as he links performance excellence in West Indies cricket to world attention. "We cannot afford to sit on our behinds and be complacent," he said at the launch, no doubt referring to the WICB's performance record.

His approach is business oriented, as Kerry Packer's was. "I am treating this as a professional business, which professional sports is. Everywhere else in the world, professional athletes are paid according to their skills and ability," said Stanford. His gains may accrue through increased tourism, accommodation, transport or television rights (as Packer's did), but that would not diminish the returns to the cricketers.

The cricketers directly contracted to Packer have never complained about being short-changed. Rather, they related a story of being treated better than they had ever been before, with higher expectations... and they rose to it. Whatever Packer's style or motives, cricketers around the world benefited from his intervention and the game's popularity, revitalized in the early 1960s by Sir Frank Worrell and Richie Benaud, got another shot in the arm.

Stanford's 20/20 has been endorsed by several Packerites, largely because they sense that a similar moment has arrived in the anti-life of West Indies cricket. Stanford's plan will improve the lucre of cricketers. Despite the scepticism of many that the 20/20 version can usefully prepare cricketers even for the World Cup format, time may yet prove them wrong, as it did critics of the Packer "circus."

While many would see it as better expenditure if the money had been directly channelled into more conventional development programmes, these are extraordinary times, and West Indies cricket needs a four-pronged attack to get it going.

Stanford is seeking to up the ante, to increase the heat around cricket, and since he seems to have so carefully trod around the West Indies Cricket Board, he may not be ready to take over their responsibilities for development yet.

He was astute enough to get the WICB president to endorse his project at its launch, even as he held details close to his chest. While the new president wished it well, directors of longer standing responded in classic WICB style, grumbling that he had bypassed the Board and had not allocated any sums toward it.

"If you are going to have a tournament that involves territorial boards, the process would really call for you making an approach to the West Indies Board, I imagine that Mr. Stanford will do this in good time," said WICB director, Ellis Lewis, the outgoing Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board of Control's president, with a hint of sarcasm. Lewis noted that if Stanford bypassed the WICB, "I imagine that he would have to get unofficial teams, he could select players pretty much what Kerry Packer did. Packer did something in the past and he could (probably) do something along those lines. I am not sure what approach he will be taking."

Lennox John, another WICB director, was also concerned about the WICB being excluded. Stanford invited the bodies responsible for cricket in 18 nations to participate, and as the days unfurled, the press carried reports of nation after nation welcoming his initiative.

What Stanford may have hoped to avoid by seeking WICB President, Ken Gordon's support, may yet emerge as suspicious WICB directors view this as the first step in a wider agenda to take over West Indies cricket. For years, West Indians have tried to find a way to do exactly that. Now, here comes a man with the resources and the bull-headedness to lock horns with the WICB.

The question for West Indians to ponder even as they see benefits in replacing the WICB is: is it prudent to transfer cricket into one man's hands? Or can they hope that it will grow under the watch of the 14 legends?

Stanford would be wise to remember how rough and thankless the road can get. Twenty-eight years ago, Kerry Packer began a journey that left a legacy of coloured clothing, night cricket, white balls, enhanced television coverage, and money for players. Yet, the ICC didn't even invite him to visit his grandchild, the Super Series, when they brought it to his home.