"I was staggered [by the offers]," Giles Clarke, Chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, told the Press Association. "But we've got a very crowded calendar and we need to look at those types of proposals - there are serious issues about whether we should be playing individual games for very large sums of money.

"There's a strong debate about it so I don't think it's something the board would view with much favour."

The ECB signed a deal with Stanford in June last year for five US$20 million Twenty20 games between England and a West Indies all-star XI with a prize fund of $20 million to be awarded to the winner. But England lost the only match that was played on 1st November, and West Indies walked away with the money.

The deal with Stanford kicked up dissent among cricket counties and even fans, and the ECB faced a lot of flak and criticism. But when the ECB received news of the fraud, it officially terminated its contracts with Stanford, ending its brief but controversial association with the Texan billionaire who was accused of a fraud of ‘shocking magnitude’. The fraud investigation was revealed by the FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission, and the tycoon’s assets have been frozen since February while he is under investigation in the United States.

Following this fiasco, it is not a surprise that the ECB won’t be stepping hurriedly into any such deals. It rejected all the three offers. One of the offers is thought to have come from the Middle East.

Comments

Add New RSS

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

Newer news items:

Older news items: