The West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) now seems to be in more of a spot of bother and a tremendous headache following the conclusion of the Cricket World Cup 2007 (CWC2007).
The WICB has been in debt for some time and the organisation’s leadership seemed to have pinned hopes of moving its financial status from red to black following the success of the CWC2007. Now that the event did not prove to be as much of a success as touted prior to its commencement, the WICB is holding its head.
Arthur’s sting
Barbados’ Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, Owen Arthur, has recently made statements that would probably have sent shock waves through the leadership of the WICB.
Speaking at a Barbados Labour Party (BLP) meeting in the parish of Christchurch, Arthur declared, It would be an act of irresponsible folly for us to take the only thing we would get from the World Cup and give it to the West Indies Cricket Board to pay its debts.” (Nation, 7 May 2007)
According to the Nation newspaper, Arthur told the gathering of party faithful that President of the WICB, Ken Gordon, had written to him. The WICB President indicated that the organisation was indebted to the tune of some $15m USD and that the Board wanted the Barbados Prime Minister to agree to hand over the gate receipts to help the organisation clear it debts.
It was an adamant Arthur who stated, Now, I have already written to him to say that the government of Barbados does not and will not agree… He insisted that those responsible for the CWC2007 pass over the gate receipts so that we can start dealing with our financial matters at the Oval.
The Barbadian Prime Minister’s reasoning may well point other Ministers of Finance across the Caribbean to adopt a similar stance to the one has taken on board.
Arthur is essentially stating that his government has spent over $100m BDS to facilitate the reconstruction of the Kensington Oval to allow for the hosting of its round of matches in the CWC2007 and that the gate receipts will help the government recoup some of that money.
In some quarters the stance taken by Arthur may not be deemed unreasonable.
WICB and CWC 2007
The WICB got the rights to the CWC2007 and immediately expected the governments of the region to do their part by investing in the upgrading and/or construction of the necessary infrastructure consistent with the expected standards for hosting the event.
The WICB has been in debt for several years and the organisation does not own any playing facilities in any of the islands.
In most of the countries whose national cricket associations constitute the membership of the WICB, there is none that owns any playing facility.
In every cricketing nation in the Caribbean, the main playing field used for regional and international cricket belongs either to a sports club or to the government. Barbados may well be the only exception.
In the case of Barbados, the Kensington Oval is supposed to be owned by the Barbados Cricket Association (BCA).
However, at the same meeting in Christchurch, Owen Arthur once more put the spanner in the works. According to Arthur the BCA only owns the land on which the facility is placed. In other words as far as he is concerned the playing field itself and nothing more are what the BCA can lay claim to.
According to the Nation newspaper, Arthur indicated that the government of Barbados owns 90 per cent of the property development company that had been set up to develop Kensington, with the BCA owning the rest.
The WICB therefore can only raise revenue by the use of these fields and whatever sponsorship it can attract. The idea of a region-wide lottery for cricket has never been given much currency and the organisation’s sponsorship of regional events has been generally weak.
The hosting of the CWC2007, therefore, appears to have been a case where the WICB was hoping to get the governments to make significant financial inputs, with nothing from the organisation itself and at the end of the competition, the latter would simply lick its lips as its treasury changed colour from red to hefty black.
At no stage during the lead up to the CWC2007 did we ever hear the WICB making any statements regarding its own financial inputs into the event.
Now that the event has concluded the WICB seems to have a perception that it has some right to the revenue generated at the gates in the various countries.
One wonders whether the WICB was somehow convinced that it had the governments of the region in its hip pocket such that it would be able to have them meet all pertinent expenses for the CWC2007.
Perhaps the WICB’s leadership thought that the governments would have been satisfied with the tourism arrivals for the Cup. Unfortunately, even here there were difficulties as St Lucia can attest. In this case, the country experienced a net decline in tourist arrivals during the period of the CWC2007. Who then compensates the government? Certainly not the WICB.
Staying red
The WICB, therefore, finds itself in a very weak position relative to raising any challenge to what Arthur is proposing on where the gate receipts should go.
If Arthur maintains this stance and the various governments in the region were to do likewise we may well soon enough have the WICB filing for bankruptcy.
The charmed existence of the WICB over the years may well have engendered with a sort of complacency that everything will be alright. This is not the case.
The region’s politicians are increasingly finding it difficult to maintain strong economies in a rapidly changing global economic environment and therefore cannot afford to engage in any sort of financial recklessness. They may well have perceived the experience of the CWC2007 as very painful and decidedly embarrassing in many respects.
The peoples of the region were not and still are not happy with the many restrictions imposed upon them and there are many who believe that the CWC2007 was not directed at them but primarily to those foreign visitors expected to bring in megabucks.
To some, it was only when the visitors were not as numerous as expected that the tickets were priced to suit the pockets of our own people in the region.
The WICB, therefore, finds itself between a rock and a very hard place.
The governments of the region may see the reasoning of Arthur as sound and seek to at least justify their own outlandishly lavish expenditures on facilities by recouping something from the gate receipts.
Of course here in St Vincent and the Grenadines, the gate receipts were so minimal that it may well not be worth the bother to address this matter. We may do well to remind ourselves that Cockroach has no business in fowl party.
If Arthur’s approach is accepted by regional governments then we are likely to find the WICB adorned in the brightest of red, financially speaking, and this for a very long time to come. The organisation’s leadership is not likely to find many people in this Caribbean of ours who are willing to sympathise with them.
