Tony Becca, Contributing Editor

Chris Dehring - Contributed

CHRIS DEHRING, the managing director of ICC CWC West Indies 2007, has denied a report that ICC CWC reneged on a contract with OC07 (Opening Ceremony 2007) to produce the opening ceremony for the World Cup.

In a report published in last Friday's Gleaner, representatives of OCO7 said it had made an application to produce the opening ceremony, it had won the bid, ICC CWC West Indies 2007 and OC07 had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU), OC07 was invited by Dehring to travel to Barbados to make a presentation to the heads of governments and then to Puerto Rico to make still another presentation to the ministers of tourism in the region, it did so at its own cost and then was informed, by email, that the deal was off.

Planning Legal Action

OC07 is planning to take legal action to recover US$50,000 owed to them based on the MoU.

That, however, says Dehring, is far from the truth.

According to Dehring, OC07 did apply to produce the opening ceremony and it did make a presentation - an impressive presentation at that.

The difference, according to Dehring, however, is that although the bid document stated a budget of US$1 million, the cost of the opening based on the presentation would have been US$6 million. ICC CWC West Indies 2007 told OC07 that it could not afford that amount of money and reminded OCO7 that the budget for the opening ceremony was US$1 million.

At that stage, according to Dehring, OC07 asked why the governments in the region did not foot the bill, it figured they should, it volunteered to make presentations to the heads of governments in Barbados and to the ministers of tourism in Puerto Rico in an effort to get the money to fund the opening ceremony at that cost. ICC CWC West Indies 2007 said go ahead, and it agreed to a MoU on that basis.

In other words, according to Dehring, the MoU was valid only if OC07 was successful in convincing the heads of governments or the ministers of tourism to come up with the money.

"Although all their presentations were impressive, they did not get the money," said Dehring.

No Money Coming In

According to Dehring, the ministers of tourism said they would ask the region to come up with the money, but if they did not do so by the end of January, ICC CWC West Indies should forget it and go ahead with a scaled-down version. "Eventually, when there was no money coming in from around the region, the board (ICC CWC West Indies 2007) met; it decided that since OC07 was unable to get the funding, it could not go any further with them, and we told them so," Dehring said.

At that time, according to Dehring, ICC CWC West Indies 2007 had paid OC07 two payments of US$50,000 each based on the MoU. The ICC CWC West Indies 2007 had picked up OC07's cost of travelling to Barbados and to Puerto Rico, and, again based on the MoU, ICC CWC West Indies 2007 owes OC07 not one cent.

In fact, again according to Dehring, by listening to OC07 and agreeing for them to make the two presentations in order to find the money, ICC CWC West Indies has lost money.

"No, sir," said Dehring. "We are not guilty of any wrongdoing. The scrutiny we are under, we have to go by the book."