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Kingstown: The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has responded to claims made by the West Indies Players' Association about the state of negotiations between the two sides over outstanding issues.
The WICB, in a lengthy response late on Tuesday, stated that the action taken by the players to boycott the imminent home series against Bangladesh "constituted a clear breach of the collective bargaining agreement" between the two bodies.
The players' body however, contends that a number of matters it had raised earlier in the year when similar action was threaten during England's tour of the Caribbean remain unresolved.
"Unfortunately, not much has changed," said WIPA boss Dinanath Ramnarine.
"The WICB has continued to employ the same tactics and is now reneging on the agreements made at [our] meetings.
"We at WIPA have made every effort since our meeting in April [this year] to have the matters agreed upon honoured, and those that were still to be agreed upon, resolved in an amicable way."
Ramnarine listed retainer contracts, settlement of payments for the tour of England, settlement of fees for the Twenty20 World Cup, India's tour of the Caribbean, Bangladesh's tour of the region, injury payments for players, unauthorised use of players' images, clothing contracts, and an arbitration matter pending for the last years.
But the WICB said it found unacceptable WIPA's demand for payment of 1.935 million dollars out of the 2million dollars tour guarantee it had received from the England & Wales Cricket Board for the recent tour of England.
The regional governing body also said it rejected WIPA's proposal for the payment of fees for the recent Twenty20 World Cup in England.
The WICB said there was disagreement between the two sides about the status of India's recent tour of the Caribbean under the ICC Future Tours programme which would determine how the players would be paid for this series.
But the WICB said it was prepared to pay the players until the matter is resolved through arbitration.
The WICB said it also refused to adopt the various amendments to a draft retainer contract which WIPA submitted way past the deadline date.
The WICB noted that it had already lost 3million dollars from players refusing to sign retainer contracts, or signing late.
But the Board was willing to pay players effective from the date of signature until September 30 this year, when new contracts would be negotiated, but this has not been accepted by WIPA.
The WICB said that the only outstanding matter for arbitration over the Stanford Twenty20 for 20 million dollars match was progressing well, and lawyers for both parties were to meet on this coming Monday.
The WICB concluded that it has always made itself available to meet with WIPA and continues to do so, and proposed a meeting date for Thursday this week in Trinidad.
