Dehring believes CWI public good status a given

Cricket West Indies (CWI) chief executive officer, Chris Dehring, is of the belief that his organisation has long since proved itself a public good.

Dehring, in an exclusive interview with the RJRGLEANER Communications Group, was speaking in response to a Gleaner editorial on October 20, titled ‘Dismantling WI cricket?’ that asked his organisation to prove that it operated as a public good.

According to Dehring, despite being a private company, CWI has, at least for the last 30 years, operated as such, bearing in mind its adherence to transparency and its financial benefit to the region.

“So, Cricket West Indies and its predecessor, the West Indies Cricket Board, is probably the most transparent cricket board in the world,” said the CWI CEO, adding he understood the sort of pushback he would get for his comments.

“And, I say that knowing the backlash I will get, but there are certain things that private companies across the world don’t do. Privately held companies don’t publish their audited financial statements or give audited financial reports or produce annual reports or hold press conferences that allow members of the public to ask questions of those reports and question Cricket West Indies and so on,” he said.

According to Dehring, the media and the public, in general, are invited to quarterly press conferences, but that it has never managed to attract much of a crowd.

“We hold regular, I think it’s quarterly press conferences. Certainly I’ve done at least three quarterly press conferences where the Caribbean media is asked to participate and question us as to various plans and policies, and so on. And these things, hardly anybody ever turns up or asks questions.

Hardly anybody even downloads the audited reports and analyses them in the way that normal public companies would have been scrutinised,” he said.

In addition, Dehring points to the way CWI has contributed to the regional economy as proof of its public good standing.

“The vast majority of income that Cricket West Indies has earned over those 30 years are generated from outside of the Caribbean. It’s not from Caribbean governments or Caribbean people. And therefore, when you think about all of that expenditure of those resources in the region, you understand that Cricket West Indies has really contributed across the societies.

“You know, I’ve made the point a few months ago in a tourism forum that we have directly spent US$82.5 million over the last 15 years on domestic airlift. That is money that has flowed from outside of the region into our pockets and been spent on domestic carriers. We’ve spent over US$120 million on hotels in the region, direct expenditure,” he explained.

According to Dehring, there are also indirect benefits to the region on account of CWI.

“Now, this does not count all the visiting fans, all the visiting media and so on that are also booking airlines, booking airlift, booking hotel rooms and so on, visiting fans travelling around the place.

“So, I think, you know, if one was to do an economic study on the contribution of Cricket West Indies over the years, you see that we have made a significant contribution, certainly a contribution worthy of consideration for corporate and government support for its continuation.”

paul-andre.walker@gleanerjm.com