THE ongoing dispute between the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the West Indies Players Association (WIPA), stands to affect the economic viability of the region if the impasse is not resolved. That’s the assessment of Grenada’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell, chairman of the CARICOM prime ministerial sub-committee on cricket. It was one of the reasons why he offered to act as a mediator to help resolve the issue of differences over sponsorship and endorsement deals in an effort to ensure that a full-strength West Indies team is represented in the VB triangular limited-overs series in Australia early next year. “This is not just about the board or a group of cricketers. It is not just about cricket. It is about the economic development of the region,” he said. “We as leaders cannot opt out of a process that involves the whole question of the economic viability of Caribbean countries.” With Barbados’ Minister of Education and Sports, Reginald Farley and CARICOM Assistant Secretary-General Dr Edward Greene as part of his team, Mitchell presided over seven hours of talks on Friday between the WICB and WIPA, at the end of which the two bodies agreed on a method of moving forward. Chief among them was an agreement to submit briefs by next Friday on terms of reference for the engagement of an independent adjudicator to render a decision on the interpretation of an old clause of a previous match-tour contract. Both parties also resolved to use their best endeavours to reach a negotiated settlement on the controversial Clause 5 of the new match/tour contract by December 15. “There are a lot of deep issues that each party considers to be of vital importance,” Mitchell said. “We had to get the parties to agree that many of those critical issues will have to be left for the consultative process between themselves and the sub-committee.” “We felt if we were not directly involved in the process, we could see a situation that would in fact end in a very disputed situation and the resulting effects on the tour [to Australia] and the World Cup in 2007 could have been marginalised.” The dispute between WICB and WIPA stems from a conflict of interest between rival telecommunications companies Digicel, the new sponsor of West Indies cricket, and the Cable & Wireless, the former sponsor which entered into personal endorsement deals with eight players. After 16 of the 25 players invited to a training camp failed to sign letters of invitations, the WICB advised its selection panel to pick replacements. “I did not have want to see a situation where the West Indies – because of a dispute between two parties which could have been resolved – had a second-string team going to Australia,” Mitchell said. Reprinted from nationnews.com