West Indies Cricket Board/ England and Wales Cricket Board suspend talks with Stanford
Published:Tuesday | February 17, 2009 | 7:08 PM
The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) have suspended negotiations with Twenty/Twenty backer Allen Stanford today after the Texas billionaire was charged by U.S. regulators over an alleged multi-billion dollar fraud.
Stanford bankrolled a winner-take-all 20 million US dollar match in November between England and a West Indies all-star team in Antigua, the first of five planned annual games worth a total 100 million US dollars.
The ECB was in discussions with Sir Allen over a quadrangular tournament in England later this year.
Sir Stanford has also funded a Caribbean Twenty/Twenty competition since 2006, held every two years.
If Stanford’s financial support for cricket ended, it would have a big impact on the game in the Caribbean and England.
Sir Stanford was planning to provide financial backing to more Twenty/Twenty competitions, including an annual tournament at Lord’s starting in 2010 and the English Premier League starting the same year.