CARICOM, LOCs and CWC2007

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One does not to this day get the impression that the CARICOM Committee on Cricket had any mandate relative to the CWC2007. There was no real involvement of the Committee beyond the fact that it may well have somehow convinced the regional Heads of Government involved in the event to spend much of what they did not have for a sport that has long since died at the local and regional levels in so far as the sportspeople of the region are concerned.
The CARICOM Committee on Cricket may well consider bringing its own existence to closure given its uselessness as an institution.

Poor Attendances
The Jamaican Hotel Association may well be credited as the first in the region to engage in critical analysis of the costly impact of the CWC2007 on the region’s economic development strategy. The organisation cautioned the region against sacrificing the region’s tourism industry for a mere 58-days of World Cup Cricket. They knew what they were speaking about.
The regional leaders of Government never realistically analysed what they were doing.
Today, the region’s hoteliers are screaming about the low occupancy levels during the CWC2
007, quite contrary to what was being preached before the commencement of the event by those who are at the helm of the organisation but who do not appear to be involved in any way in the travel and/or hotel industries in the region.
The predicted economic boom that would flow during the CWC2007 has not yet occurred and none of the principals who were responsible for the predictions are speaking out about the disappointment that now abounds across the Caribbean.
Even at the level of spectatorship the region’s political leaders have finally been allowed to see for themselves just how much people are prepared to resist any attempt at calling on them to pay unreasonable prices to attend matches that are significantly substandard.
People did not seem to mind paying top dollar for games of significance but not for mediocrity. One therefore wonders who had the responsibility for determining ticket prices for the various matches in the competition.
The prediction that our people would be traipsing around the region for the various matches has also fallen flat and blown up in the faces of the organisers.