Former Windies cricketer Lance Gibbs (left) is joined by Bruce Aanensan (centre), CEO of the West Indies Cricket Board , and Kevin White, COO of Digicel Group Caribbean, at the press conference in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, yesterday to announce Digicel's renewed commitment to West Indies cricket. - Contributed

port-of-spain, trinidad (cmc)

The West Indies Cricket Board and mobile provider Digicel yesterday announced that they have extended their sponsorship agreement until September 2012.

Bruce Aanensen, chief executive officer of the WICB, indicated that the revised agreement comes into effect on October 1 this year, following discussions about some of the terms of the agreement which he described as "irritants".

"It is not a new contract, but it is more of an extension of the existing contract with some fairly significant amendments," he told reporters at a news conference yesterday at Queen's Park Oval.

"The contract was to end in January 2010 and, as part of our negotiations with Digicel, it was agreed that they would relieve us of some of the onerous things the WICB could not deliver upon.

"In turn, they asked for an extension of the agreement which we found to be a quite reasonable request on the part of Digicel, giving all that we had asked for."

The agreement guarantees yearly sponsorship payments of at least US$4 million from which there will be no deductions, something that proved to be a contentious issue under the previous arrangement.

"Under the old contract, there were some clauses with which we had some difficulty with the interpretations and these have been sorted out," Aanensen said.

The new contract, which comes into effect ahead of the West Indies' tour of South Africa later this year, offers enhanced opportunities for the WICB to attract more corporate sponsorship.

Opportunities

These include branding rights at Test match grounds and sponsorship rights to any thri-nation series the WICB might develop.

"One of the big costs to the WICB in this contract in the past has been a 10 per cent fee due to an intermediary who brought the two parties together," Aanensen said.

"Digicel have agreed that instead of the WICB taking up this expense, they would also take responsibility for this."

He added: "Digicel have scaled back on some of the branding opportunities they have had in the original contract and this would allow us the chance to do some branding of our own or to sell some branding to some of the sponsors of our other tournaments."

Digicel will also continue its own programme of development initiatives such as its cricket scholarship programme and training clinics, and it has expressed its willingness to be part of the proposed academy for West Indies cricket to be launched in November at the Cave Hill campus at the University of the West Indies in Barbados.

During the recently concluded Windies tour of England, Digicel funded a specialist fielding coach and team psychologist, as well as announced the scholarship programme which allowed the first recipient, Jerome Taylor, the opportunity to play with Leicestershire for the remainder of the English County Championship season.