World Cup 2007: Private Sector Support Needed

Caricom's secretary-general, Edwin Carrington, has urged Caribbean businesses to back the region's effort to successfully host cricket's World Cup in five years' time and suggested that the tournament may provide an opportunity for partnerships between Caribbean firms and counterparts in non-cricketing countries in the hemisphere.

The Cricket World Cup, which highlights the shortened, limited overs version of the game, is played every four years and the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB), which oversees the sport in the Caribbean, won the right to host the tournament in 2007, after next year's competition in South Africa.

The WICB has established a subsidiary, Windies World Cup 2007 Ltd, to organise the tournament, which will bring together the 10 Test nations and the second-tier cricketing countries which qualify for the competition.

The West Indies plays as a single team, comprising of English-speaking Caribbean countries where the game's deep roots were put down by British settlers.

But Carrington, in a speech Saturday at a banquet in Montego Bay, put on by the city's Chamber of Industry and Commerce, suggested that businesses outside the region's traditional cricketing countries were seeing the economic potential in the World Cup and that those in the region should grasp the possibilities.

"Already there is a strong hint from non-traditional cricketing countries in the hemisphere that they are interested in being involved in the venture as their entrepreneurs have recognised the money-spinning potential of this event," Carrington said.

Only relatively few countries play the sport at the highest "Test" level, it has a huge following in some of the world's most populous nations, such as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is also a major sport in England, Australia and New Zealand is followed zealously by the large expatriate population in places like Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and in the United States and Canada with their mix of West Indian, Australian, Indian and Pakistani immigrants.

The sport also has a growing following in parts of Africa.

It was likely against this background that Carrington urged Caribbean entrepreneurs to view the economic possibilities for involvement in the tournament.

"And games are allocated on the basis of the best possible economic returns," he said. "Given today's technology, such games can profitably be held just about anywhere in the hemisphere and are certainly not limited to the traditional cricket Test-playing countries of the West Indies."

WICB officials were unavailable for comment yesterday on the issue. But Carrington's remarks seemed to imply that some matches in the tournament could perhaps be played say in the United States or Canada, where they could be guaranteed large ethnic crowds and perhaps substantial revenues from pay-per-view TV.

SOURCE: Jamaica Observer.