Home  Sports Stanford All Stars, England to clash
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Stanford All Stars, England to clash |
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Written by Kevin Pile
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Sunday, 15 June 2008 |
LONDON, England, – Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford on Wednesday unveiled a multi-million dollar joint venture with the England & Wales Cricket Board which will see a one-off, winner-takes-all US$20 million match being staged in Antigua this November.
The match, scheduled for November 1 on Antigua & Barbuda’s Independence Day, will be held annually for the next five years at the Stanford Cricket Board, and will result in US$100 million being poured out during that period.
A Stanford Twenty20 All Stars team, which will be selected shortly, will clash with England for the largest ever payout for a single cricket match.
“I don’t think I’m giving it (money) away, I’m investing it in cricket’s future for the West Indies,” Sir Allen told reporters. “As everybody knows, we are in the bottom of the trough right now and I’ve been in the Caribbean for 26 years and when you see something that you love so dearly – that glue, that fabric that binds us all together in the West Indies – at the bottom, you want to do everything in your power to bring it back up.
Every member of the winning 12-man squad will take home a million dollars with another million being shared among the coaching and management staff. The West Indies Cricket Board and the ECB will split the remaining cash.
Though the prize money will be worth US$100 million, the overall value of the match far is expected to be as much as US$150 million because of other associated costs.
WICB president Julian Hunte said he was thrilled by the venture and said he viewed the investment from a developmental perspective.
“It is important money for West Indies cricket, and in fact, it is a very serious investment, the largest investment that we have had by any one individual in cricket period,” Hunte said.
He added: “Out of this tournament will come something like [US$33.5 million] which will go towards our own development so it is good for us as we look at the resurgence of cricket. We need this investment in the total structure of our cricket to underpin our own strategic plan.”
ECB chairman Giles Clarke lauded Sir Allen for the lucrative venture and noted that it was important to England that West Indies cricket returned to the top. “He is a great, legendary entrepreneur. He has the entrepreneur skill of stopping an opportunity and seizing it and taking it forward,” Clarke said.
Sir Allen, who bankrolls the lucrative Stanford Twenty20 tournament in the Caribbean, made the announcement at the ECB headquarters at Lord’s, flanked by several of his Stanford Twenty20 legends.
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