BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – A bidding war between two of CARICOM’s largest territories and cricket rivals has seen a delay in the release of the full Caribbean Premier League T20 fixtures and the location of the Semi-Finals and Finals.
Sports officials from Guyana and Trinidad met with CPL representatives on Tuesday (May. 3) to iron out who would be awarded the matches and what price they intend to pay.
Coming out of that meeting in Georgetown, Guyana’s Minister of Education with Responsibility for Sports, Rupert Roopnarine revealed that oil-rich Trinidad and Tobago had outbid his government to host the Finals weekend.
He was quoted in The Guyana Chronicle as saying: “The state of play is that it seems as though Trinidad has outbid us and they are having those discussions.”
But the Caribbean Premier League officials rubbished those claims, stating that they were still in negotiations with three countries to host the matches, with the other being Barbados.
“The CPL is currently in negotiations with three countries who are each bidding to host the Finals of this year’s CPL,” CEO Damien O’Donahue said.
Early last month, Roopnarine had disclosed that Providence National Stadium would play host to the Semi-Finals and Finals, but Trinidad and Tobago had asked for extension of time to discuss their bid price after initially backing out.
Guyana’s Minister of Finance, during an interview with media entity Kaieteur News, explained that the initial asking price for the CPL Finals weekend was a steep price for his country.
He said that CPL approached the Guyana Government to host the matches to coincide with its 50th Independence Anniversary celebrations at a staggering US$4.5M. The Government was however only willing to only pay US$2M.
“The CPL made a bid, we reviewed it in Cabinet…we were to review it again and then we heard that Trinidad outbid us. Of course there will be a degree of disappointment that we are not hosting the finals…We don’t have the reserves of Trinidad first of all and Trinidad would have always been an attractive venue.”
A media source in Guyana told SKNVibes Sports this morning (May 6) that the bid has been finalized and Trinidad and Tobago was successful, but they are waiting to sign off on it.
The source explained that Guyana was not willing to go higher than the price it had put on the table, pointing out that the Government and the public at large is disappointed to have missed out on this opportunity.
The Sports Minister had indicated that he was not aware who the CPL Organizers were negotiating with since the matter is a closed case.
“If they are negotiating with Guyana, I don’t know with whom they are negotiating. They are certainly not negotiating with me,” he told the Guyana Chronicle.
This would be the third time that the CPL Finals will be played at the Queen’s Park Oval in the four-year history of the tournament - Warner Park was the other venue.
