West Indies: Going after big bucks (6 Sep 1998)

6 September 1998

Going after big bucks

The Trinidad Express

The West Indies Cricket Board is proposing to incorporate. What will incorporate mean and why is it being proposed?

With West Indies cricket dealing more and more with major international corporate concerns the West Indies Cricket Board see the need to incorporate.

This proposal, which was supported by the annual general meeting of the board has now been sent to the territorial boards for ratification. Some of those boards, such as Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad an Tobago, have already gone the road of incorporation.

The Board as presently constituted is a registered association, governed by its articles of association and bylaws, with members drawn from the six regional boards.

Under this structure the members of the Board, and hence the individual territorial boards, are individually liable for the Board's decisions.

The direction that world cricket is taking has brought the Board face to face with the urgent need to earn large sums of money. This entails negotiation of major contracts such as television rights, fees for teams, sponsorship agreements and licensing of merchandise.

Increasingly however, the large international corporate bodies with which the Board can cut major deals are growing nervous about signing such contracts with a party whose legal structure is unclear.

Already there have been examples - legal departments advising their principals not to sign in the absence of a clearly defined legal structure. The potential difficulties in enforcing any such contract are too great for their liking.

The Board intends to incorporate as an international business company and has chosen to do so in the British Virgin Islands, like the International Cricket Council (ICC). The British Virgin Islands has been able to maintain a reputation for integrity in its offshore sector and the costs and quality service available there are major advantages.

And with modern communications the physical location of a head office has little impact on the quantity and quality of business it can carry on.

In practice, the Board will hardly be any different and will have no greater powers than before. The representatives of the territorial boards will now become directors and the territorial boards become shareholders.

But there will be major internal advantages to the Board. But what is the ultimate goal of taking a business like approach?

It is, and always will be, to develop our cricket. Success on the cricket field is the lynch pin of all other success and corporate and financial growth is not an end in itself since the raison d'etre of the Board is the development of West Indies cricket.

The request to incorporate has come from the territorial boards to the regional boards rather than vice versa.

Yet this should not be at all surprising since the regional board is drawn from the territorial boards.

This is quite contrary to the public perception of the Board as a monolithic whole trundling its away across the region, making its own decisions without regard for insular concerns.

The Board's financial concern is not just with staying alive; rather it must find substantial funds to support a full developmental programme with enough in reserve to cover the bad years. There is money out there to be accessed.

But to do so the Board has had to get its affairs in order. Incorporation is a major step in that direction.

Source :: The Trinidad Express (https://www.trinidad.net/express/)