A Cloud Over World Cup 2007
Sun, Feb 12, '06
At the risk of being slaughtered by every West Indian at home and abroad who is looking forward to World Cup Cricket 2007 being hosted in the Caribbean, I sound an alarm.
Throughout the region, people are being encouraged to build accommodation to house the tens of thousands of cricket fans from cricketing nations and their Diaspora in places such as the United States and Canada who are expected to swarm into the area for the series.
In building this accommodation, many persons are raising money from local banks and putting up collateral which they could lose if arrangements for the West Indies to host the World Cup series go amiss.
Equally, governments throughout the region -? all of them, with the exception of Trinidad and Tobago, strapped for cash ?- are also investing heavily in the necessary infrastructure that hosting the games requires.
Indeed, many of them are banking on the benefits of tourism as a result of the World Cup to boost their economies in 2007 and beyond.
The Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, Sir Dwight Venner, pointed out recently growth estimated at 4 per cent of the member countries ? mostly the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) ? "was attributed to a sharp expansion in public and private construction activity, partly due to the preparations for Cricket World Cup 2007."
Sir Dwight anticipated an upturn in growth in 2007 from revenues predicated on the belief that the Caribbean will host the Cricket World Cup.
This extra spending by governments comes at a time when, for many of them, revenues are falling as they lose their preferential market in Europe for traditional exports of bananas and sugar.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Grenada?s Prime Minister, Keith Mitchell, told a news conference that a representative of the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) has indicated that there are four countries that are behind in their readiness to host the games.
Preparing to host World Cup games is a hard task. There are always cost overruns and failures to meet deadlines. Greece barely completed its main stadium for the Olympic Games in 2004, and, even as this is being written, the Wembley stadium in the United Kingdom, which is being reconstructed for the FA Cup Final in May, has faced cost overruns and is unlikely to be ready.
But, the United Kingdom has many other venues and it has already put Cardiff on notice to switch the venue if Wembley?s reconstruction is not completed.
For countries in the Caribbean, the luxury of switching grounds within the same territory does not exist.
Neither, does the capacity for absorbing cost overruns. And, at least one Prime Minister has already signalled that he has been presented with new estimates that show considerable cost overruns for his country?s arrangements to be World Cup ready.
We have to recall that being "World Cup ready" is not only about the venues in which the games will be played and the sufficiency of accommodation to house the tens of thousands of expected visitors. It is also about adequate medical facilities, proper road infrastructure for movement within countries, airports of an acceptable international standard, the ability to move people easily between countries, and security.
The logistics of the operation call for organisational capacity and skills, and for cooperation between several agencies across several countries, the like of which the Caribbean has never experienced.
And, while I have every faith in the capacity of our people to rise to the occasion, they will need resources for training, for experimentation, for putting systems in place and testing them, and for final implementation.
Where the money to fund all this will come from is the worrying question.
The news that the WICB has a hole in its finances of several million dollars further aggravates the worry.
There has been no shortage of critics and sharp criticism of the WICB; the latest of these being the reported assertion by former West Indian Cricket Captain, Sir Vivian Richards, that "what you hear about the financial situation, that can be classified nothing else more than failure."
The new president of the WICB, Trinidad businessman Ken Gordon, has been an innovator as well as a problem solver in several successful businesses of his own.
The trouble is that the WICB is not his personal business, and the freedom with which he acted to run his own operations successfully cannot be employed in a multi-country operation in which consensus has to be carefully garnered while seeking to move ahead swiftly.
He has appointed two advisors to the board in Sir Alister McIntyre, one of the Caribbean?s leading economists and a former Head of the CARICOM Secretariat and the University of the West Indies; and Texas billionaire, Allen Stanford, the owner of Caribbean Star airlines and several holdings in Antigua and Barbuda.
In these two men, the WICB can call upon experience the first in overcoming cross-border national rivalries and building regional consensus, and, in the second, on a strong capacity to make businesses work in the region and knowledge of where to tap for financing.
It must be recalled that there are others waiting in the wings to grab the World Cup if the Caribbean is judged as unable to host it.
Therefore, we must wish Ken Gordon and the WICB well. For much is riding on their ability to keep Cricket World Cup 2007 firmly in the Caribbean.
But, with both the prospects for Caribbean economies and the investment of many hundreds of West Indians in facilities for the expected tourists in 2007, this is not a matter for hope alone.
There is now a great urgency for governments, the Caribbean Hotels Association, the private sector organisations ? particularly the banking sector ? and the WICB to collaborate in unprecedented ways to ensure that the World Cup 2007 does not slip out of the Caribbean?s hands.
The cloud over World Cup Cricket 2007 has to be dissipated.
* Sir Ronald Sanders is a business executive and former Caribbean diplomat who publishes widely on Small States in the global community. This column first appeared in the Guyana Chronicle newspaper.
