THERE could be a decision by the end of the week, on whether or not Trinidad and Tobago will be hosting the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) finals as Minister of Sports Darryl Smith was scheduled to meet with CPL officials yesterday.
It is thought that the CPL had originally labelled the rights to hosting the semifinals and final of the event with an US$800 000 price tag but speaking to Guardian Media Sports yesterday, Smith indicated that T&T’s final offer to host the event is US$1M dollars but would like to make payment in local currency.
Smith said that he would like to have an answer to take to Cabinet as early as this week’s meeting, explaining, “I am meeting with them on Wednesday, (yesterday).
“We have an offer on the table and we will see what the discussions bring. Because of the foreign exchange issues that we have, we would pay the bills and so on in TT dollars but that is the best that we can do at this time and hopefully we could make an announcement finally, whether its yay or nay so that I can go back to Cabinet and get that approval.”
T&T last hosted the CPL finals in 2015 and it is understood that the-then government paid US$3.5M while the government had refused to pay the US4.5M asking price for the last year’s edition.
Yesterday the Minister also spoke on the Udecott investigation into the Brian Lara Academy misuse.
“It’s sad. I let Udecott conduct its investigations before I spoke on it. But some people are showing that they are not patriots of T&T by the sabotage that we’ve been seeing.
“You could clearly see that there is somebody in T&T or a group of people that have been and continue to be against the opening of the Brian Lara Academy,” he said. “Whoever is doing it, please stop!” (Trinidad Guardian)