It is not clear whether this is the wisdom of hindsight or whether Pietersen genuinely had a premonition about the man, as he was reported as having said, "Stanford was a sleazebag. I was very uncomfortable with the whole Stanford thing."

According to Pietersen there was a perception that the England team was being ‘sold’. "It was not that I was captain at the time, it was the uncomfortable situation of everybody thinking the England team had been sold. With the financial state of the world, people were talking about money instead of cricket. Those kinds of things just didn't seem right to me, so it's not a bad thing we are not going to have that tournament anymore.”  Pietersen is himself a sufferer as he was brand ambassador for Sanford. "I was an ambassador for Stanford - a player face - but that contract has gone," he said.

L Burke Files, president of Financial Examinations has also come out in criticism of Stanford and his lavish spending, saying that more question should have been asked when someone was so willing to throw around so much money in international cricket. He said that he had been warning investors away from the Stanford Empire for two years and went on to add that "With the cricket deal you had to ask questions. If he is willing to throw $20 million of investors' money at such a short-term deal you have to wonder if he's being fast and loose elsewhere,” indicating that the ECB had in fact not done their due diligence.

The media glare of world is now turned on Stanford, his lavish and opulent lifestyle, his private planes and his grand office buildings. The Stanford financial group has their headquarters in some of the most expensive areas of the US and elsewhere. Stanford has $100 million fleet of private jets which are now grounded and awaiting disposal by the receiver. Even there the grand luxury that seems to mark everything that Stanford was associated with is evident, with “six hangars, each a uniform-corrugated steel shed with the exception of the 'headquarters' of Stanford Aviation, where an ostentatious portico supported by columns and landscaped by palm trees has been added on,” as reported in the cricket news by a popular British publication.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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