A lot of things have not worked out well but the profits from the mega event may clear all the arrears of the WICB, Board President Ken Gordon has said.
PORT OF SPAIN: A lot of things have not worked out as well as they could have but the World Cup has largely been a success and could help the West Indies Cricket Board wipe off the $15 million debt on its head.
The profits from the mega event may clear all the arrears of the WICB, Board President Ken Gordon has said. It was one of his major aims before the competition started.
"I'm optimistic enough to hope that it might wipe it all out."
"I expect that if we don't reap the full benefits, we will get pretty close. There may be a shortfall but I don't think it will be of any significance. I think we will come close to the targets we set. And I think overall, we will look back on this as a tremendous event." Gordon was quoted as saying by 'Trinidad and Tobago Express.'
"West Indies cricket expects to get a fair investment on it and out of that it intends to put in place plans for the developing of cricket. That's what we want to do.
"We've been carrying a deficit of USD 15 million. If we can find a way to clear that, it eases our overall structure. It gives us the ability to have bank-borrowing, to do things which we can't do now. Now we can hopefully work our way out of that."
However, Gordon admitted that not everything had gone to plan.
"Many things have gone wrong. But who could have expected Bob Woolmer, right at the beginning of the series, to go like that? Who would have expected India and Pakistan to be withdrawn and so many thousands of people who were planning to come cancelling? Some countries have paid the price for it."
But Gordon insisted that the World Cup has been more a success than failure.
"This is the third largest event in the world. And we have done it when people didn't think we could. And I think at the end of the day, we should all take some little pride in achieving it."
"We have dealt with enormous problems and our people have grown every time they have addressed them. And I think even though there were all these setbacks, we moved into a second gear. And other things were done to put in place," he claimed.
"We've had some empty stands, but you always have empty stands when you have weak games. The challenge is how you handle that in a way that would minimise the damage to the visible, while at the same time, not affecting the sales you're trying to build, and I think we've done a pretty good job at this."
He was especially pleased with the performance of the volunteers.
"The volunteers have been one of the great successes of this thing ... because they have been absolutely superb. I've heard so many tourists talk about that.
"You can't quantify the benefit of the warmth that has been generated at that level when those people leave here. We must understand that this is not a project that you can expect your investment to be returned in a year or two, it's a long-term investment," Gordon, who has tendered his resignation as WICB boss but has been asked to re-consider, said.
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