Organising next World Cup a challenge

Unless you are deep into South Asian cricket politics, it is going to be an interesting exercise in 2011 to identify those running the main committee handling the next version of the World Cup.

The reason for this comment is simple enough: who to apportion the blame when certain daily routine events are hamstrung, or even hijacked by local officious bureaucrats who are often cronies of central committee members.

What we had out of Lahore this past weekend was a carefully worded statement. No doubt written in the luxurious surrounds of Bhurban, the main hierarchy of CWC11 are claiming how they want to hold a spectator friendly tournament.

Well, on the face of it, that's a step forward; another is that they want to seek a common visa. Only wait for the time when the four governments involved in this joint venture start laying down the parameters needed to fill out visa forms.

That is when there are three or four steps backward. Payment for the visa will be in US dollars naturally; and the price to be shared fixed by the four governments involved is going to be who is going to get the bigger slice of the visa monies.

How this is going to be weighed against the price of tickets will be as interesting. It could so easily end up with price for a visa and tickets costing more than that planned and a repeat of the often chaotic scenes in the West Indies.

Much of this was experienced at the point of departure where exit and transfer fees were demanded by airports. In most cases, the airport dues were more than the required visa payment. And not all airports had the same fee.

Little wonder some travel agents are already voicing concern at what they feel will be additional interfering bungling by government agents appointed to issue visas. New Zealand family members waited almost six months after application to receive an acknowledgement because certain Caribbean Community officials in Kingston waited until after New Year to deal with the submitted forms.

By then the exchange rate and other price fixing factors had not been issued and that meant further delay until the initial fees quoted had escalated by more than a hundred dollars a visa.

Of the five World Cups attended, from personal experience in 1996, even dealing with the local committees created serious problems. Seeking comment on a particular issue was often fraught with so much security to negotiate that the bureaucracy kept on getting in the way of its own so-called transparency.

Why, when the 1987 World Cup was first staged in Asia, it was so much simpler than that of 1996 when there was the Pilcom shambles run by Jagmohan Dalmiya and his cronies. If you remember, Pilcom still had money in accounts in 2005.

Apart from occasional snags in accreditation, 1987 was about as smooth as 1992 in Australia and New Zealand , but largely, the Pilcom show was often a decided fiasco. And this wasn't about the Australia or West Indies abandoning their games in Colombo after LTTE conspired Central Bank bomb blast.

As there was no central media officer, or office, getting information was a DIY (do it yourself) exercise. Pilcom officialdom kept on getting in the way by ignoring questions.

This time, hopefully in keeping with World Cups of 1999, 2003 and 2007, the central committee will appoint a 'media' officer who no doubt will be part of the crony system.

After the Caribbean exercise no one wants to have a CWC that becomes boring. The easiest format as suggested before in these columns is to split the Super Eight into two groups of four teams each followed by semi-finals and finals.

This is where working out the logistics becomes important, mindful of teams and their supporters (if the tournament is to be spectator friendly). While rhetoric is one thing and promises to deliver is another, it also shows that if you cannot deliver on a promise, don't kid yourself that you can.

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