Dear Editor,
One of my oldest and best friends in the Caribbean was a very successful big banker. He would rather talk about cricket, ethics, human relations, the good old days, and things like that. He would never say publicly that he was an expert in finance, as I once heard the President of the WICB say on TV. Not surprisingly, the board hired a banker as its CEO. As bank customers know, banks are experts at charging fees for their services, so the CEO’s strategy of raising money by imposing fees wherever possible, may have been irresistible. What is intriguing, though, is that he sought to impose the fees on income earned by WI cricketers participating in foreign cricket leagues like the Australian Big Bash, on the basis that the cost of the players’ development was borne by the WICB. The idea sounds very much like licensing out players, although those players seek out the contracts themselves, or through agents for whose services they would be required to pay. Not only does this approach raise human rights issues, it is the kind of idea that is workable ‒ if at all ‒ if it is not only consensual, but is arrived at after brainstorming with the players, prospective employers, player representatives, and people who have given a great deal of thought to such ideas.
Yours faithfully,
Romain Pitt
