Amid the raging Novel Coronavirus Pandemic and its impact on the sporting world, if persons do not adhere to the regulations of Bio-secure venues or the “bubble” as it is commonly called now, then tournaments simply cannot happen.
This is the opinion of the Caribbean Premier League’s (CPL) Cricket Operations Director, Michael Hall who was one of the featured guests on a panel of sporting administrators organized by the Ministry of Tourism to discuss sport tourism in Guyana.
Hall reflected on the recent experiences during the staging of the CPL in Trinidad and Tobago which was the first time in the wake of a pandemic that the Caribbean hosted a competitive sporting event of this nature.
From those experiences, Hall declared a number of new expenses were incurred, mainly due to the significance placed on health and safety. The Director revealed some US$200,000 was spent on testing alone for all those involved.
Among other expenses incurred were the cost to house everyone involved in the bubble while the loss of ticket sales due to no in-house audience added to their woes.
In his presentation, Hall asked the question, “what is the new normal?” to which he asserted “health and safety above everything else,” a principle that he explained was at the forefront of all the plans for the CPL this year.
Stabroek Sport quizzed the Director on the importance of having everyone remain within the bubble while explaining the constraints faced within the country to pull off something of this nature.
Hall responded, “The short answer to your question is this, unless everybody stays within the bio-secure bubble it can’t happen, people can’t break it and come back and so on they have to stay in that bubble for the entire time.”
He explained, “Unless everyone who is in Guyana for the tournament or comes into Guyana having done all the safety precautions, testing before, got their results back clean, come in on a private plane that isn’t contaminated by persons not coming into the bubble etcetera, unless they remain in that bubble then the tournament can’t be held.”
With the Guyana Football Federation President, Wayne Forde, who was also on the panel, expressing his desire to resume football, Hall contended that it was more realistic to host a tournament or a few matches over hosting a league.
“It’s one thing to put on a tournament that lasts for four weeks and be able to sustain the cost that is associated with that as opposed to a league which lasts sometimes seven months depending on how many teams are in the league and keeping people secure for that extended period…So doing it for a short period of time such as a tournament or series of matches, you know two qualifiers for the Gold Cup or two World Cup qualifiers that happen to run two of them at home is one thing to create a bubble is another to create one for a league…,” he stated.
