Players claim WIPA and WIPMACOL deceived them into sigining away their image rights

Senior members of the Guyana Cricket Team have expressed their disappointment and anger upon being made aware of the "true" contents of the contracts they have signed with the West Indies Players Association (WIPA) and with the West Indies Players Management Company (WIPMACOL). The Senior Team members who wish to remain anonymous said they learnt of the true contents shortly before their departure for St. Vincent and never realised that WIPA and WIPMACOL own their image rights solely. "I cyan imagine that Ramanrine would mek we sign a document taking away our image rights for himself" one player said. He said that he was never given a copy of anything he signed and he "signed during the lunch break while on tour with the Guyana Cricket Team last year". "Nobody explained anything to we; the captain said we signing up to join WIPA, I never hear 'bout WIPMACOL" another player said. His colleague said that "Ramnarine lie to us; he tek away our image rights and he ain't even put in the contract how much he gon pay us".

The players said they only learnt of the true contents of the contract when a "small gears sponsor" said he could not afford to pay Ramnarine the fees he was demanding for the use of their image rights. We were only getting gears which we need and he was demanding money payment from the sponsor to use our image rights. When we heard this we consulted a lawyer in Guyana who obtained copies of the contracts from the Court files and explained what was going on to us.

The Guyana Cricket Board throught their lawyer Sanjeev Datadin last year sued Dinanath Ramnarine (the Chief Executive of WIPA), WIPA and WIPMACOL and obtained injunctions against all of them just before the Guyana Cricket Team left for South Africa to play in the Airtel Champions League. The contracts were reportedly exhibited in those Court proceedings. 

The WIPA contracts state clearly that the players assign their image rights for a period of 15 years (with a renewal exercisable by WIPA option for a further 10 years) and will be paid "a fee to be agreed" for their image rights; the WIPMACOL contract is similar. Senior Counsel in Jamaica said "this would mean that even the player cannot enter into a contract to play cricket anywhere in the world as he is not the owner of his own image rights. WIPA and WIPMACOL own the players' rights solely, to the exclusion of the player himself". Another lawyer in Barbados who wished not to be named said "I am suprised that the West Indies Cricket Board has not intervened on the players' behalf". He said such a contract was opressive and the players were being taken advantage of because of thieir innocence and lack of formal education.

Another Guyanese Cricketer who wished to remain nameless said the "Sars tell us to sign everything; its only for membership to WIPA he said, I would not have signed otherwise.

The contracts also revealed that seasoned and experienced cricketers such as Darren Ganga, Dwyane Bravo, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Wavel Hinds were the principal officers of WIPMACOL and were the ones who signed the contracts on behalf of WIPMACOL. WIPMACOL is the business arm of WIPA and its shareholders are secret. The Minister of Sports in Guyana, Frank Anthony said that it appears that the senior players were influencing the younger players "to sign up" when they were the ones who were benefitting financially from the deal.

When asked the embattled Bissoondyal Singh of the Guyana Cricket Board said he saw "nothing wrong with WIPA owning the players' rights; they signed a contract and if they not sensible enough to read what they are signing then its their fault. Nobody force them to sign anything". But the Guyanese players disputed this saying that there was enormous pressure from Ramnarine and Sarwan (their captain) for them to sign the documents. They said it is apparent that anyone who does not obey Sarwan on such matters do not find their way into the final eleven regardless of how well they perform in trials. This they said was the case with Assad Fudadin and Richard Ramdeen; neither player could be reached for comment. However, the Chairman of Selectors Claude Rafael said he did not think that "such onerous and deceitful" contracts ought to be allowed. "This is Sarwan and dem teking advantage on dem youngeters" he said. He said he hoped it would not continue.