CWC ‘contingency plan’ remains huge mystery

January 14, 2003 by neil manthorp

There is some­thing very, very strange going on at World Cup head­quar­ters. It start­ed many months ago when teams due to play fix­tures in Zim­bab­we were under­stand­ably curi­ous about where they might be trans­ferred to in the event that the ICC decreed that the coun­try was not safe.

Inno­cent enquiries were made to the CWC organ­is­ing com­mit­tee and although they spoke often of a “con­tin­gency plan”, there were nev­er any details pro­vid­ed. Fair enough, we thought. It was still a long way off.

But as Zim­bab­we’s domes­tic cri­sis wors­ened through the last quar­ter of last year, the “con­tin­gency plan” became more and more mys­te­ri­ous — not clear­er and clear­er, as most would have imagined.

At the begin­ning of this week CWC com­mu­ni­ca­tions direc­tor, Rod­ney Hart­man, said the “con­tin­gency plan” had now fall­en by the way side and was no longer an option fol­low­ing the ICC del­e­ga­tion’s deci­sion that Zim­bab­we was safe.

Just for the sake of clar­i­ty and inter­est, we thought it would only be right to find out what the “con­tin­gency plan” had been, when it still exist­ed. Because obvi­ous­ly the var­i­ous Unions would have been informed and placed on stand-by.

Pieter­mar­itzburg was an obvi­ous choice because it had only been sched­uled to host two match­es. This is what Cas­sim Docrat, CEO of KwaZu­lu­Na­tal, had to say: “There has been no dis­cus­sion with us on this issue, either for­mal­ly or pri­vate­ly but one would think that the CWC organ­is­ers have a con­tin­gency plan in place.” That’s what we all thought.

How about some of the big­ger unions, then? David Emslie of EP said: “We haven’t heard any­thing but I would­n’t imag­ine that they would give us a game any­way as we already have five. But I think some of the small­er unions would like one if there was an extra game going.” Indeed. But let’s fin­ish with the ‘big’ unions, first.

New­lands? West­ern Province CEO, Arthur Turn­er, said: “A con­tin­gency plan has nev­er been dis­cussed with us. I don’t think we could logis­ti­cal­ly host anoth­er game any­way, even if that sit­u­a­tion should arise.”

Alan Kourie, Gaut­eng’s act­ing CEO, said: “There has been no talk of a con­tin­gency plan with us, but if they were switch­ing games I’d think the small­er unions would get first option. But nobody has approached us and asked if we would like to have anoth­er game.” Elise Lom­bard, CEO of North­erns, said: “As an affil­i­ate we don’t have any con­tin­gency plans because the direc­torate came from CWC. As a venue we would­n’t mind anoth­er game. Eng­land against Zim­bab­we would be nice.”

How about Kim­ber­ley, then? The De Beers Oval would be per­fect. “I know noth­ing of a con­tin­gency plan, we have not been offi­cial­ly approached by CWC and there has been no unof­fi­cial talk,” said Gri­quas MD, Bri­an Kidson.

North West, then? Potch must sure­ly be on the list? “No, there has been noth­ing put to us in terms of a con­tin­gency although we did request an extra game, should one become avail­able, about a year ago. But we got no response to that request,” said John Open­shaw, gen­er­al manager.

We’re run­ning out of options, now. Boland? Pic­turesque Paarl, maybe? “At the moment we have received no request offi­cial or unof­fi­cial and we have nev­er received any cor­re­spon­dence in that regard in the past,” con­firmed Boland pres­i­dent, Hen­ry Paulse. Bloody hell.

East­erns? Benoni may have it’s detrac­tors but nobody can claim it’s not organ­ised. “We under­stand that there will be no alter­ing of the venues for the World Cup and that the only action would be that Aus­tralia and Eng­land would face a fine and lose their points if they don’t play in Zim­bab­we. There was a con­tin­gency plan before but dur­ing the last week that had changed,” said Char­lene Smith, mar­ket­ing manager.

Ah ha! So there WAS a “con­tin­gency plan” At last! Sad­ly, still no details were available.

Goodyear Park was heav­i­ly rumoured to be in line for the Eng­land-Zim­bab­we match at one point but Sep­pi Lusar­di, Free State’s GM, was giv­ing noth­ing away this week: “I can’t divulge any infor­ma­tion, speak to Ali Bach­er if you want com­ment on that. I have no com­ment.” His sen­ti­ments were echoed, albeit more polite­ly, by Bor­der’s CEO, Reunert Bauser. “I don’t think the venues can com­ment on the con­tin­gency issue. Those deci­sions are made by CWC I’m not going to comment.”

In the absence of any hard infor­ma­tion it is a jour­nal­ists job to spec­u­late and to make as much use of the avail­able infor­ma­tion as pos­si­ble. I believe there was nev­er a “con­tin­gency plan”. How could one have exist­ed with­out the knowl­edge of those sup­pos­ed­ly involved in it?

Zim­bab­we’s match­es were nev­er going to be moved bar­ring a vir­tu­al civ­il war in that coun­try dan­ger­ous enough to pro­duce a unan­i­mous agree­ment from all six coun­tries due to play there that it was unsafe to do so. That, frankly, was nev­er going to happen.

Who­ev­er says sport and pol­i­tics don’t mix is kid­ding them­selves to the point of humil­i­a­tion and ridicule. It is the very same gov­ern­ment politi­cians who say that sport should be “left alone” that have applied mas­sive pres­sure to the CWC organ­is­ing com­mit­tee to leave Zim­bab­we’s match­es untouched.