World Cup 2007: Eyes Wide Shut

With eyes wide shut, the government of Jamaica signed up as a host of Cricket World Cup 2007 and is spending more than US$102 million on venues and other facilities and services.

But with only 236 days left before the opening ceremony, the co-ordination and management needed to ensure maximum returns on the investment are not up to scratch.

Indeed, Robert Bryan, executive director of the Local Organising Committee (LOC) lamented at a media seminar Thursday that "if we don't get our act together" the venture may be a lot less successful than the investment requires or the country has a right to expect.

The lament came just a week after Gleaner boss Oliver Clarke urged the government to quickly appoint a Cricket World Cup manager tasked to "turn what is now a potentially disorganised mess into a successful and profitable major promotional event for our country" (Sunday Gleaner July 9).

Arrangements to host and transport visitors, construction of facilities around cricket venues and ensuring that Jamaicans buy into the event are among the issues that appear to be in need of urgent attention.

Jamaica is one of nine Caribbean countries that will stage what has been billed as the third largest event in sport between March 5 and April 28 next year.

We were awarded what's known as the Yellow Package, for which the government has paid US$12 million. The package includes four warm-up matches in Trelawny between March 5 and 9, the opening ceremony at the same facility March 11, six Group Stage matches at Sabina Park March 13-23, and a semi-final match also at Sabina on April 24.

To deliver on these commitments, government is spending over US$80.8 million for "on the pitch" expenses. This includes refurbishing Sabina Park and constructing the new multi-purpose facility in Trelawny (through a soft loan from China). Another US $20 million is budgeted for 'off-the-pitch' expenses, putting the tally at more than US$100 million or some $7-billion (Jamaican), according to Bryan.

From the very outset some of us felt that the country should not develop two major facilities, and people like Opposition Leader Bruce Golding questioned the expenditure altogether, especially as we don't have a clue where the $20-billion will come from to pay for the much-needed education transformation programme.

Of course, if the government had decided that the price of admission to the Cricket World Cup party was too rich for our blood (then) Prime Minister P J Patterson would have been accused of shaming Jamaica when St Kitts and Grenada were all dressed up and ready for the bacchanal.

NO TURNING BACK

Either way, we are in. There's no turning back. What's need is for Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller to respond positively to the calls for proper co-ordination and management of the large amount of poor people's money that the government is spending on the event.

From what I heard at the seminar Thursday, hosted at the Jamaica Conference Centre by the Media Association of Jamaica, there's no doubt that the Trelawny stadium and the new-look Sabina Park will be ready, although Sabina is a little behind schedule.

The big concerns are whether enough people will come to Jamaica and spend enough money to justify the expense, whether the event will deliver on earlier promises to drive development and whether enough Jamaicans, particularly those who live and do business near to the venues, will be able to earn enough to justify the disruption in their lives.

In the early heady days when the bids were announced, expectation was that we would have to host some 30,000 visitors. This was later revised down to 20,000 and now the latest estimate of visitor arrivals is 13,000, according to Bryan.

We are yet to hear the factors driving the expectations downward in Jamaica when all the indications are that there has been greater uptake for the other packages in the other countries.

THAT 'YELLOW PACKAGE'

One of the factors impacting negatively on Jamaica, in my view, is that the 'Yellow Package' is not a crowd puller from a cricket perspective.

The four warm-up games in Trelawny start on March 5 with West Indies versus Kenya. The other matches will see India against the Netherlands, Kenya against the Netherlands and finally West Indies against India.

The six Group Stage matches at Sabina Park will involve the West Indies, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and Ireland, again not the best package in terms of cricket. I can't see Ireland-Zimbabwe filling a 20,000-seat Sabina. The first game, Pakistan versus West Indies, is the only one likely to pull a cricket crowd.

It would be interesting to find out how many of the projected visitors are tied to the semi-final match on April 24. If cricket won't bring in the crowds, then the Jamaica Tourist Board will have to do a real marketing job.

That's why I was surprised to hear Ed Bartlett, the Opposition spokesman on tourism, criticise the Board for its plan to increase spending on promotion related to the event. I could understand if the criticism was that the effort was too late.

But assuming that cricket and 'Brand Jamaica' do combine to pull in the crowds, the job of co-ordinating all the bits and pieces needed to house, feed, secure, transport and entertain them is enormous and is clearly in need of an experienced manager of the type Oliver Clarke called for.

IN THE DARK ABOUT URBAN RENEWAL

We still are much in the dark about the extent to which the event will spur urban renewal around Sabina Park and the downtown area. The only thing we learned was that an earlier plan to widen South Camp Road to a four-lane dual carriage has been scuttled, presumably for lack of funds.

Another big unanswered question is what is going to happen to the two venues that have been established at enormous public expenditure once the few days of cricket are over.

So far, the silence about the future of the multi-purpose stadium in Trelawny is deafening. Once the cricket is finished, the LOC will hand over the keys, Bryan remarked Thursday. What's not clear is, to whom and for what?

It appears that government will put out a tender and invite firms to bid to lease and run the facility. Nobody seems to have a clue as to who might want it, for what purpose, on what terms, or whether the potential lease income will be able to pay back the Chinese government and maintain the facility.

Surely, these things should have been given serious consideration before we borrowed more than US$30 million from the government of China, albeit at two per cent, to build the facility.

And what's going to happen to the government's investment in Sabina Park? As Oliver Clarke correctly remarked, "Unless there is an aggressive business plan, the taxpayers will be funding these two elephants - colour unknown - for years to come".

Another critical task for the yet-to-be-named manager is to see that, as far as possible, Jamaicans get opportunities to share in the commercial possibilities associated with the event.

We know that the International Cricket Council, (the governing body of the sport) as the sole owner of the event, has sold broadcasting and sponsorship rights for US$550 million to Global Cricket Corporation, a subsidiary of media magnate Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp empire.

As Bryan puts it, the rights holder is "the only organisation that can determine who goes to Sabina Park to sell peanuts or chewing gum" so all potential Jamaican vendors and purveyors of goods and services will have to go through them. It's not clear that people know how to make this happen.

For instance, we still do not know the list of 'infringement' and 'offensive' materials that will be banned from the parks and environs nor the offences that will be criminal under the 'sunset' legislation yet to come to Parliament.

Finally, there is the particularly sensitive question regarding the interest of the residents and businesses immediately surrounding Sabina Park. Some of the smaller businesses are going to lose money because vehicular access to their premises will be denied on match days. Will they be compensated?

It was also reported that the Social Development Commission (SDC) is currently doing a house to house survey as part of a process of discussions between the SDC and the residents and businesses around Sabina Park about responsibilities and opportunities surrounding the event.

Regrettably, these are only just beginning. Last Sunday, the Gleaner reported that there is no evidence to date in neighbouring Campbell Town that the event is just a few months away. "Nobody has said anything to us about it. We just know the World Cup is coming," a businessman was quoted.

The same article said that residents of Allman Town have formed a development committee and are developing plans to profit from the event, assuming that they can establish an 'entertainment pavilion' for visitors expected to walk through the area. Some also hope to provide bed and breakfast services.

Given safety and other considerations, these plans will have to be carefully developed and implemented and, it seems to me, government must aggressively lead this process. Jamaica House only needs to look at the current contretemps over the Portmore toll to realise that there is going to be bangarang if the people around Sabina Park don't have an opportunity to 'eat a food' out of World Cup.

Those of us in the media need to report more extensively on preparations for the event (outside the sports pages); we have to hold accountable those who are responsible for spending billions of our dollars and that we get value for our money. But we also need to engage the public more fully into what could still turn out to be a proud Caribbean moment.

* Claude Robinson is senior fellow in the Research and Policy Group, Mona School of Business at the University of the West Indies.