Proposal to replace Brancker rejected

An initiative to have Barbadian business executive Rawle Brancker replaced as chairman of the Board of Cricket World Cup 2007 has been overwhelmingly rejected by the six territorial bodies represented on the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).

The original proposal put to representatives of member boards of the WICB, then under the presidency of Teddy Griffith, and Val Banks, who remains vice president, was to have the newly-elected president, Ken Gordon, as both head of the WICB and chairman of the CWC Board. But Trinidad Express was reliably informed yesterday from highly credible sources that the plan was rejected as a development that could result in "unnecessary tension and instability" with "negative consequences" for Cricket World Cup 2007.

When contacted, Brancker said he was not disposed to commencing on the issue "at this time". He, however, stressed that he intends to "continue to do my job as chairman of the CWC Board with ultimate and demonstrated integrated and transparency for as long as I am in that position..."

Questioned on reported tension in relations between him and Jamaican merchant banker Chris Dhering, the chief executive officer of CWC 2007, Brancker, who has been board chairman from its inception in 2003, said he would "prefer not to comment on that matter either". Dhering was appointed head of marketing for the WICB under then President Pat Rosseau, the Jamaican entrepreneur, and subsequently seconded to become CEO for CWC 2007.

The nature of Dhering's appointment made him accountable to the executive board of the WICB, while both Rosseau and Barbados's Teddy Griffith served as President, although Dhering functions under the management of the board of CWC 2007.

WICB Board members who feel that Brancker should be allowed to continue as head of the CWC 2007 also confirmed that the immediate earlier president, Griffith, was approved for appointment to the CWC Board as a result of a vacancy that arose. They denied that Griffith was to be a "consultant" to West Indies Cricket Board Inc, the private entity that deals with the business aspect of the WICB, and which had entered into the controversial secretive sponsorship contract with Digicel in 2004.

Griffith did not make himself available for re-election as WICB President at the recent annual meeting in St Maarten, and Ken Gordon was elected unopposed as new head of the Board. Banks, the incumbent vice president, defeated a challenge from former West Indies captain Clive Lloyd by two votes that proved decisive - his own and that of the outgoing president Griffith.