St Lucia Stars have been axed from the Caribbean Premier League, and the franchise will not be participating in CPL 2019 as the Stars. On August 7, CPL Limited terminated the participation agreement between it and the Royal Sports Club, LLC, the entity that operated the St Lucia franchise.
While announcing the decision via a media release, the CPL didn't elaborate on the reasons behind the termination. The release did say that CPL were "in the process of establishing and operating a new franchise to be based in St Lucia that will participate in the 2019 Caribbean Premier League."
Jay Pandya, the chief executive and owner of Royal Sports Club LLC and Global Sports Ventures based out of Pennsylvania, expressed his disappointment with the CPL's decision in a statement to ESPNcricinfo.
"We completely disagree with the CPL press release and will be working to address any issues the CPL may have in an appropriate manner and forum," Pandya said.
ESPNcricinfo understands the franchise had several outstanding payments, which was one of the reasons behind its axing.
The 2019 season is scheduled to begin on September 4.
The Stars had never won CPL, with their best finish coming in 2016, when they finished third on the table, but lost in the Eliminator to Trinbago Knight Riders. In 2018, they finished fifth among the six teams, with seven points from ten matches. They had several star players on their roster in 2018, with Darren Sammy, Kieron Pollard and Rahkeem Cornwall among the local stars, and David Warner, Niroshan Dickwella and Mitchell McClenaghan among their overseas players.
This year, they bagged Lasith Malinga and Fawad Alam in the draft as their main overseas players.