Tony Cozier: Stanford’s sudden largesse came with a price
Latest in Cricket
140 Sport blogs
Via the World: Welcome to the ocean
The sun is setting on my fifteenth day at sea. Pale pinks and oranges paint the western sky and gent...
iBet: Serena Williams looks hungry again
Serena Williams has looked right back to her best in recent weeks and more importantly she looks hun...
Manchester City top the ‘injury league’, with Manchester United bottom
The results of new research into every significant injury suffered by every Premier League footballe...
Related articles
A chorus of “I told you so” has reverberated across the Caribbean since Sir Allen Stanford was fingered by United States investigators for “massive fraud”.
There was widespread scepticism from the start that the Texan billionaire’s fanfared entry into West Indies cricket three years ago with his own Twenty20 tournaments was too good – or too bad – to be true.
His global financial empire might have turned over squillions but, even before it was suspected that he might have been illegally using other people’s money, there appeared no business sense to his sudden heavy investment in a game restricted to small territories with small economies and small populations.
No one quite bought his assertion that he had suddenly fallen in love with a complex sport viewed as something of an oddity where he came from. His connection to the shifty realm of island politics and his close association with the previous Antiguan government counterbalanced his role as the biggest investor and employer.
When the administration changed through general elections five years ago, the new prime minister, Baldwin Spencer, called him “haughty, arrogant and obnoxious”.
For all that, there was no doubt that Stanford’s Twenty20 matches, involving 19 territories scattered across the Caribbean, from smallest to biggest, played under the lights at his own Stanford Cricket Ground (the SCG, of course) in front of sizeable crowds and televised live throughout the region, injected a new excitement into Caribbean cricket.
It counteracted the constant bungling of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the depressing international results.
Even Julian Hunte, the WICB president who last April signed the contract sanctioning Stanford’s costliest project, the $20m (£14m) matches between his West Indies Superstars and England, was yesterday moved to “to thank him for what he has done for West Indies cricket”. He went so far as hoping that Stanford would be cleared of the charges “so that we will be able to work together again”.
Hunte was quick to assert that his board was not dependent on the American’s “largesse” for its financial survival. But individual boards did initially receive $100,000 handouts and grants of $15,000 a month to improve facilities, until some squandered the money and Stanford scrapped the scheme.
Such funds will obviously be missed but the Twenty20 tournaments themselves will be missed more, by players and fans.
Quite apart from the huge prize money earned by the winning teams – Trinidad and Tobago pocketed $1.5m in two years, Guyana $1m, Jamaica $500,000 – they gave the anonymous weekend club cricketers from previously ignored smaller islands their moment in the spotlight while their impoverished associations gained finances never forthcoming from the regional board.
Unknowns like Dane Weston from United States Virgin Islands became a star for his hip-wiggling wicket celebrations. Lionel Ritchie, the batsman from St Maarten with the showbiz name, and construction worker Maxford Pipe from the Tortola were other favourites as much as the far more established Chris Gayle, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Shivnarine Chanderpaul.
Stanford’s series brought youngsters like Lionel Baker and Andre Fletcher to wider public attention, both moving into the West Indies team, Baker as the first Test player from tiny, volcano-ravaged Montserrat.
Gayle’s endorsement was typical of the feeling of many of the other players – perhaps even those who, it is said, invested with Stanford some of the $1m each they won in the match against England. “No doubt about it, whichever way you look at it, Stanford has done a lot for the Caribbean,” Gayle said.
“He actually brought out a lot of supporters with his tournament and other things so we’re not going to say he hasn’t done anything for us.”
Adamant that his Superstars had to defeat England in the $20m match, Stanford ordered them into a preparatory camp for six weeks and appointed a large support of coaches, trainers and physiotherapists to look after them.
It was the kind of regime with which West Indian cricketers were unfamiliar. Its advantages were evident in the side’s slick |performance in beating England. “It let you know that this was your job, that this is what you had to do to be as good as possible,” said Sulieman Benn, the left-arm |spinner.
The WICB could at least take a leaf from that chapter of Stanford’s book.
- 1 Lerner targets Lambert appointment by weekend
- 2 Brendan Rodgers 'agrees deal to become Liverpool manager'
- 3 England must beware brilliant Belgium
- 4 Euro 2012 files: Notable absentees
- 5 Club-by-club guide: Players available on a free transfer this summer
- 6 Hodgson likely to play it safe... but how about a quick call to Joe Cole?
- 7 Lampard set to miss Euros as England turn to Henderson
- 8 James Lawton: Liverpool must show new man the respect he needs to do the job
- 9 Final curtain beckons for Lampard's mixed England production
- 10 Rodgers poised to complete Anfield move
- 1 Millions face financial woe as debt levels soar
- 2 Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim
- 3 Anger over Christine Lagarde's tax-free salary
- 4 Plans to redevelop Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's house blocked
- 5 Krokodil: The drug that eats junkies
- 6 Image released of naked cannibal killed by Miami police as he ate homeless man's face
- 7 Class A drugs 'should be decriminalised,' says former drug advisor
- 8 Diagnoses of increasingly antibiotic resistant gonorrhoea infections rise by 'unprecedented' 25 per cent
- 9 James Lawton: Liverpool must show new man the respect he needs to do the job
- 10 Israel hints it may be behind 'Flame' super-virus targeting Iran
Experience the Heineken Hub
Get free wi-fi and exclusive i content while you enjoy a tasty pint of Heineken at participating pubs.
Can you imagine a career in teaching?
Be inspired to teach - let real teachers show you how rewarding the job can be.
A home to be proud of with Halifax
Download the Halifax's brilliant, free new Home Finder app, and take all the pain out of finding your dream home
Playing a game-changing role during the Games
Cisco is providing the solutions for London 2012's complex IT needs.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Career Services
Day In a Page
The problem with social mobility
France's sixth biggest city* goes to the polls (*that's London, btw)
Car-crash TV: Ferrari quits news after gaffes, rows and poor ratings
Bringing the IB to the East End





Comments