CARICOM, LOCs and CWC2007

11

Conclusion
There is no excuse for poor planning.
There is reason enough for us to believe that the WICB was caught up in a whirlwind of expectations fuelled by ignorance and incompetence enough to share all around the region.
The various Governments have already spent the monies and there seems little that can be done to recoup the losses.
The image of the Caribbean as a place of fun and frolic in sporting activities has been dimmed and significantly so. We took the fun out of our attendance at sporting activities claiming security issues were more important.
Had Trinidad and Tobago undertaken such stringent security measures in its own Football World Cup exercises there would not have been the outpouring of supporters that is the case today. Cricket learnt nothing from football and the regional Governments, not the cricket administrators are the ones footing the huge bills left behind.
In many countries the headache now begins in determining just what measures could possible be taken to make optimal use of the facilities that were built on expectations rather than on rational analysis of the reality of the game in our part of the world. Here again there seems little planning has taken place beforehand, except perhaps in the case of Barbados.
Here at home we were told that all of this is in the works. We are yet to be told exactly what that means. What we do know is that we hosted four matches and could not muster a grand total of 8,000 patrons for the entire period. This must be matched against the fact that we have constructed a facility that has a capacity in excess of 12,000. One wonders whether the organisers can find any reasonable explanation that would even begin to make sense to the average Vincentian who may wish to ask questions about the overall investment as against the returns on that investment.
Bob Marley is correct in his analysis, that we can’t fool all the people all the time.
Unfortunately though, the truism of the statement certainly does not deter many of our leaders and administrators from trying as best they could to fool all of the people all of the time.