The troubled company behind this year?s 20-20 World Cricket Classic was made the subject of a winding up order in court yesterday.

In a brief, ten-minute hearing, Chief Justice Richard Ground said of the Get Fit Foundation: ?The sooner this company is put into the hands of its creditors, the better.?

A handful of those creditors attended the Supreme Court hearing, but declined to comment as they left the proceedings yesterday afternoon.

Sports Minister Dale Butler has already told that the company owed Government and many local businesses almost $1 million.

Senior officials from the insolvent foundation, an English-based charity and also a registered Bermudian company, were not present in court yesterday to see the winding up order granted.

The foundation was represented by Kevin Taylor, of Appleby Spurling Hunter. He asked for a creditors? meeting to be held in two months. But Mr. Justice Ground rejected this request for more time ? and said the meeting should be held within four weeks.

No figures of amounts owed were detailed during the hearing, but the court was told that the foundation?s assets were understood to be a bank balance with a ?certain amount of cash in it? and some equipment, now stored in a warehouse in England.

Mr. Justice Ground said that this equipment had to be seized and its value assessed, while the bank balance had to be divided between creditors, all at minimum expense.

He said that the two liquidators already appointed to administrate the company would stay in place until the first meeting of creditors. This should take place as soon as possible, the Chief Justice added, so that people owed money by the foundation ?know where they stand?.

Mr. Butler revealed last month how Government rejected the foundation?s ?audacious? request for a new $3 million grant to make a proposed 2007 tournament reality.

Laying bare the company?s stricken financial state, he said it was $896,000 in arrears. This figure includes an agreed $200,000 ?management fee? due to Government for the privilege of hosting the Classic on the Island, $65,000 owed to the National Sports Centre for the use of the pitch, while the remainder was made up of claims from a ?large number? of Bermudian businesses who did work for the foundation but had yet to be paid.

They now hope to get as much of this money back as possible through the liquidation process after the foundation?s assets are sold.

The Classic brought seven international teams of former professional cricketers to Bermuda in April. Bermuda?s national team lost to South Africa in a final that attracted a bumper crowd.

But, in the wake of the tournament, the foundation announced that it had made a loss of nearly $750,000 and was in receivership. High costs of staging the event, twinned with lower than expected ticket sales and overseas visitors were blamed.