T&T has outbid Guyana for CPL finals – Roopnaraine

Minister of Education Dr. Rupert Roopnaraine yesterday afternoon said that Trinidad and Tobago has outbid Guyana for this year’s CPL T20 cricket finals but said that no official word has come from the organizers.

“We have been outbid by Trinidad. We have not been notified by CPL but that is what we gather”, he told Stabroek News at Parliament.

Asked how he feels about this, he responded “I wish we were richer”.

CPL had an initial asking price of US$4.5M. It is unclear how much Trinidad has bid.  They had originally expressed an interest but pulled out. Last week several government officials stated that Guyana would host the finals and semi finals though the cost Guyana was willing to pay was not revealed.  The price is said to be in the vicinity of US$1.5M.

Asked if Guyana still has a chance of holding the tournament, Roopnaraine said “I don’t know. It depends on what they come and tell us.  Maybe they would say they don’t mind that Trinidad has bid a million dollars more than we have, we prefer Guyana which will be nice”.

Minister of Finance Winston Jordan who was tasked with finalising the negotiations yesterday said at Parliament that he has heard that Trinidad has won the bid and later pointed out that there were a number of factors working against Guyana.

He said that the bid was reviewed in cabinet “and then we hear Trinidad has outbid us”, noting that nothing is final until it is signed.

“While they may have been negotiating with us somebody may have (had an interest)  remember Trinidad had it first, they originally asked Trinidad first and when they indicated that they couldn’t go with that price then they obviously went out”, he said. He said that after Trinidad didn’t show an interest, CPL came to Guyana.

Asked if he is disappointed, he said “of course there will be a degree of disappointment that we are not holding a finals although we have never held one”.

He said it may be both the finals and semi finals that will be hosted by Trinidad. “I think they were part of a package so we would have lost both of them”.

Jordan, while not wanting to make public the price tag that Guyana had on the table, said that Guyana could not have gone higher.

“We don’t have the reserves first of all despite Trinidad being in (economic) trouble we don’t have the reserves and Trinidad would have always been an attractive venue based on the crowds, the strength of the home team…the hotels,  airlift… So a number of factors would have been against us once Trinidad came into the picture in a very strong way”, he said.

Observers here had raised questions about the wisdom of the government being prepared to allocate so much money to this tournament when there were so many other priorities particularly in relation to supporting local sport.

Queries had also been raised about how the government was preparing to spend such a large amount which had not been catered for in this year’s budget.