St. Johns, ANTIGUA – The West Indies Cricket Board and the West Indies Players Association today formally announced a historic partnership to stage an awards ceremony honouring the best performances by West Indian players, in both regional and international cricket, for the 2012 calendar year.
The leadership of both the WICB and WIPA have been in discussions regarding several joint initiatives, and they have agreed to collaborate on the staging this year’s ceremony.
"The WICB had been planning a ceremony to honour the winning team from the ICC T20 World Cup," said WICB CEO, Michael Muirhead. "It makes good sense from any angle for WIPA and us to stage the 10th anniversary of this event jointly. As part of the overall plan to re-position cricket, we think the collaborative approach is more attractive to the corporate sector and cricket fans. The awards present a fantastic opportunity for the partnership to grow even more."
This year’s event will be known as the WICB/WIPA Annual Player Awards Ceremony, and will see fourteen categories of awards presented on the evening, along with a special presentation to the winning West Indies World Twenty20 team members. Two new awards will also be included among the 14 – the WICB Lifetime Achievement Award and the WIPA Lifetime Achievement Award.
The event will be held during the Trinidad and Tobago leg of the Celkon Mobile Cup, on July 4th in the Grand Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Port-of-Spain. It is expected to be broadcast live on regional television stations. Both WICB and WIPA are currently in discussions with potential commercial partners, and expect to make an announcement regarding these discussions in the next few days.
Both WICB and WIPA have agreed to use a part of the net proceeds from the event to fund an initiative which will be for the benefit of past players, and these details will be announced in the near future.
The sale of tickets, both corporate and individual, has already begun, and WIPA CEO Michael Hall is encouraging the support of corporate Trinidad & Tobago in this regard.
"There has always been tremendous support for the event through the purchase of tables by the private sector, and with the World T20 champions being the honoured guests this year, we are certainly expecting that support to broaden and expand," Hall commented.
For the past nine years WIPA had staged the awards ceremony on its own through sponsorship support from First Citizens Bank in Trinidad and Tobago. Regrettably First Citizens recently advised WIPA of their inability to continue this arrangement.
"We are extremely grateful to First Citizens Bank for their previous commitment," said WIPA CEO Hall.
"Through their support, the annual ceremony honouring the achievements of our players has grown in stature with each passing year and we are now able to expand and grow this event on an even larger scale."