Speaking following the 22nd meeting of the Board of Directors, ICC CWC WI 2007 Inc. Chairman, Kenneth Gordon confirmed that the tournament profits will contribute heavily to securing the future of West Indies Cricket and in the provision of a direct return to host countries.
“We broke new ground by hosting this event successfully in the Caribbean. Of course there are lessons we have learned and things which occurred that could not have been anticipated. The fact that we were able to effectively deal with the challenges is a credit to the excellent work and high quality of the management team. The staging of the Cricket World Cup was an experience we all take great pride in.”
“We compare very favourably with much larger countries that have hosted this event before. We sold more tickets (672,000) than the last two cricket world cups in South Africa (625,000) and England (476,000) and garnered $32 million in ticket revenue which the ICC has told us is the highest gate ever. Along with the high standard of organisation of the matches, these are worthy achievements the Caribbean can be justifiably proud of. The profit from the event will also eliminate the deficit of the WICB and this augurs well for the future of West Indies cricket,” he added.
“This was always going to be challenging given the number of countries involved, the lack of infrastructure at the time when the region committed to the project and the relatively small size of our economies. But despite all this, the West Indies got the job done.”
