Cricket men learning from football

Jamaican Chris Dehring, chairman of the local organising committee, and Ken Gordon, the Trinidadian president of the West Indies Cricket Board are both in Germany taking notes.

The two officials were seen at the FIFA World Cup Stadium in Dortmund last Saturday for the Trinidad and Tobago/Sweden match.

They were expected to meet with leading officials of the local organising committee in Dortmund for talks which are likely to centre on security, logistics and related organisational matters. The 2007 Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean is by far one of the most ambitious and difficult exercises in world sport ever staged.

Making the event particularly tricky is the fact that the Caribbean is composed of several independent islands with separate jurisdictions and immigration controls.

There is also the situation of accommodation with the countries staging matches not particularly confident of having the required rooms necessary to cope with the influx of guests.

And many stadiums where the matches are to be held are currently under construction and in a race to be finished in time for the first ball early next year. Another problem being tackled by Dehring’s organising committee is the issue of price fixing with hotels charging exhorbitant fees since the tournament will be staged during the peak winter season. In Germany, Gordon, a successful business tycoon and Dehring, a respected investment banker will have much to learn from their hosts. The Germans are widely acknowledged as the most efficient people in the world with high quality standards and an almost perfect record for staging some of the biggest sports events in the world.

Close to 65,000 people made their way to the Dortmund venue by coach, car, bus and on foot, were searched and admitted to their respective seats, and filtered out of the stadium within an hour after the final whistle blew. It’s a kind of operation that both Dehring and Gordon would do well to get their committees to emulate next year.