Tag Futebol

John Harmer has turned down a potential opportunity to become Bangladesh coach. Harmer, 65, was the only candidate from a three-member short-list identified for the role, to have made a presentation to the Bangladesh board.”He [Harmer] informed us through an email that Bangladesh needs a young and energetic coach for the demanding job. This is something that he felt during his stay,” Gazi Ashraf Hossain, chairman of the Bangladesh board’s cricket operations committee, told the , a Dhaka-based newspaper. “But Harmer showed his interest in a different capacity. We will consider his offer.”Harmer’s decision means that all three short-listed candidates have either refused or been ruled out for the job. Dave Houghton, the former Zimbabwe captain, had withdrawn his candidature last month citing family problems; while Jamie Siddons was out of contention after his terms and conditions could not be matched with those of the board.The board has been looking for a national coach since Dav Whatmore had refused a two-year contract extension after spending four years with the team. Whatmore’s last assignment was the home series against India in May. Shaun Williams has been interim coach of the team since the the away series against Sri Lanka in June and July.The board with now start a fresh process to find a coach.

Mark Vermeulen has been granted bail by the Magistrate Court judge in Harare. He appeared charged with arson after a fire at the Zimbabwe Cricket Academy in the Highlands district of the capital.He was asked to pay $500,000 (US$2000) as bail and also had to lodge deeds to his property with the court. His Zimbabwe passport was also confiscated.Vermeulen has to report to Harare’s Highlands Police Station everyday during his bail term, and he will have to seek special permission to travel outside a 40km radius of Harare. He is prohibited from going near any Zimbabwe Cricket property.Vermeulen, who said that he was forced to confess, was in a relaxed mood and chatted to friends and guards. His brother, Roland, and Andy Blignaut were in court and it is believed that Blignaut helped him to raise the bail money.Outlining the prosecution case, state attorney Tawanda Zvekare said Vermeulen had threatened to “destroy” the governing body (ZC) after being told to play for a local club to have his form assessed before he could be considered for selection for an upcoming tour of Bangladesh. “This did not go down well with the accused who verbally threatened that he was going to destroy Zimbabwe Cricket in two weeks,” Zvekare explained.He first tried to set fire to the association’s boardroom at the Harare Sports Club ground on Monday by sprinkling methylated spirit on the curtains and then setting it alight, said Zvekare. But when that fire caused only minor damage, he went the next day to the training academy where he managed to burn down the pavilion.Vermeulen was not asked to enter a plea but his lawyer, David Dhumbura, complained to the court that his client had been forced to “make indications to the police without the presence of his defence team.”

The organisers of the 2007 World Cup are pulling out all the stops to ensure profitability in the region, and to protect the rights of sponsors when the event touches down in the Caribbean in March 2007.Stephen Price, special events officer of ICC CWC 2007, went into some detail in outlining the measures the World Cup management committee would be implementing to ensure smooth running of the event as they hosted the Stakeholders Road Show at the Crowne Plaza Hotel on Wrightson Road, Port of Spain, yesterday.Price highlighted the importance for West Indian people to benefit from hosting the Cricket World Cup, which he said was the reasoning behind the Caribbean Economic Enterprise Initiative. The initiative seeks to ensure long-term benefits for the region, not only financially, but in the sharing of knowledge, as well as the experience of staging an event of such magnitude.Thus, any tasks being contracted to foreign companies must be sub-contracted to smaller units within the region to ensure their involvement and, consequently, monetary benefit and increased knowledge base.Price also pointed out the committee had paid great attention to the running of the 2003 World Cup in South Africa, and expressed several undertakings that are necessary for safeguarding sponsors’ interests.Some of the main areas with which he expressed concern included “ambush marketing”, as well as counterfeit merchandise. One of the examples he gave was an incident where a company in Antigua was advertising a “Cricket World Cup mortgage” without being given the rights to do so.Price also warned against congratulatory advertisements, which are quite common in the Caribbean, and announced that some of the measures being taken to counteract such advertising included monitoring the internet, as well as having “spotters” on the lookout for counterfeit merchandise, and they have also hired lawyers to be their “eyes and ears”. He also gave some insight into the Sunset Bill, which must be passed by the Parliaments of all nine host countries, which will make it illegal to carry out such activities.The bill, he said, was drafted with the guidance of regional attorneys general as part of an Anti-Infringement programme. He noted the CWC committee did not want to be in the position of South Africa, who are being levied for more than US$47 million worth of breaches at the 2003 World Cup.Price also invited local individuals and businesses to take advantage of opportunities for licensing for CWC paraphernalia, saying those interested can contact the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of their territory, or indicate their interst by e-mail to licensing @cricketworldcup.com. The official global partners of CWC 2007 are LG, Hutch, Pepsi and Hero Honda, and the official sponsors are Indian Oil and Cable & Wireless.

Saqlain Mustaq, the Pakistani offspinner, is all set to undergo a second knee surgery, and will be out of cricket for several months as a result. Doctors have advised him to undergo surgery at the earliest to treat this career-threatening injury.Saqlain has already had surgery on his left knee, earlier this year, and the fresh procedure is likely to lay him low for as many as six months. “It is disappointing to be in such a situation. But the doctors say that if I don’t get proper and permanent treatment, my career could come to an abrupt end,” Saqlain is quoted as saying to Reuters.Saqlain’s injury comes on the back of the announcement that Umar Gul, the promising young mediumpacer, was out of action because of a troublesome back that needed treatment.While Saqlain has been in and out of the Pakistan team, he has performed with success for Surrey over the last few years. Saqlain’s last match for Pakistan was a disappointing one, against India at Multan, where he had meagre returns of 1 wicket for 204 runs.

The man responsible for running the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean has claimed that two of the region’s highest-profile cricket grounds are in desperate need of renovation.Chris Dehring, chief executive officer of Windies World Cup, told the Sunday Sun newspaper that Jamaica’s Sabina Park and Barbados’s Kensington Oval were not fit to be used in the 2007 World Cup, and that investment of several millions of dollars was needed to get them ready in time.”You are talking about two countries which have been so-called traditional venues of international cricket in the Caribbean,” Dehring explained. “Yet, because of their status as traditional venues, very little, or certainly not enough, has been done, to improve the quality of the stadiums in these countries over the last 40 years.”So what you have is a situation where the best or the most modern cricket stadiums are actually now in the Eastern Caribbean: St Lucia, Antigua, St Vincent and Grenada, which have new facilities and purpose-built cricket stadiums.”That’s one area where both Jamaica and Barbados have fallen behind. I think it’s quite sad when you think about the tradition of cricket in Barbados where you have Kensington Oval, which the Barbadians refer to as the Mecca. I ask myself if this is the Mecca, why hasn’t an investment befitting a Mecca taken place in Barbados over the last 30 years.”Dehring did, however, argue that the very lack of readiness presented its own opportunities. “The beauty about it is that there is really no country that is absolutely ready, so, this is a green field. You don’t have these massive infrastructures you would have to move out of the way to put the World Cup infrastructure. It really is an opportunity to put in place exactly what we want and factor in what we need in the Caribbean, whether it is the cricket World Cup or not.”Dehring concluded that although the plans were as much as two years behind schedule, he believed that the Caribbean would be ready in time, and he dismissed reports that the International Cricket Council (ICC) was looking at alternative venues. “All of the television rights have been sold all around the world,” he said. “I don’t think it could be disbanded even if the ICC wanted to, and the ICC and the Caribbean have no intention of walking away from the exciting challenge of the World Cup in the West Indies.”Asked whether last week’s suggestions for a revamp of the whole one-day structure would affect the tournament, Dehring smiled. “It’s just like saying that somebody submitted a proposal for restructuring the Olympic Games and Athens is in danger.”

New Zealand Cricket’s financial performance came in slightly above budget with a surplus before grants of $2,598,518 last summer.That was $68,000 above budget, a performance NZC chairman Sir John Anderson described as “a sound result.”However, when the grants of $4,339,489 to associations, including an extra one million dollars for the return to two full rounds of Shell Trophy play, were taken into account the net result for the year was a deficit of $1,740,971.The annual report will be presented at NZC’s annual meeting at the New Zealand Cricket Pavilion at Bert Sutcliffe Oval on September 14.Anderson commented: “New Zealand Cricket’s business is cyclical in nature, revolving equally around the commercial value of opposition teams touring New Zealand and revenue-sharing from World Cups.”New Zealand Cricket is in a sound financial position, with significantly increased revenues in the next two years confirmed from tours to New Zealand by England this coming season, India in 2002/03, and the World Cup in South Africa in February 2003.”This confirmed revenue will provide a solid base to allow New Zealand Cricket to continue with its mission to promote cricket nationally, provide appropriate national competitions and field competitive international sides,” he said.However, he attacked a prevailing attitude, especially in government circles, that leading sports such as cricket no longer require funding support due to their ability to attract significant television rights fees and sponsorships.Anderson said: “This presents a serious concern for New Zealand Cricket as we recognise the business environment in which we operate is fragile and television rights income can vary significantly from year to year.”Anderson also recognised the performance of New Zealand’s teams on the field of play.”For the first time in our cricket history the New Zealand men’s side celebrated the winning of a world title, lifting the ICC Knockout Trophy in Kenya during September.”Three months later when captain of the CLEAR White Ferns, Emily Drumm, held aloft the prized CricInfo Women’s World Cup after a tense final against Australia, both our international teams had achieved a historic result.”These achievements by the players were the pinnacle of five years of dedicated effort to up-skill and significantly resource the elite level of both the men’s and women’s game,” he said.Cricket’s place in the New Zealand sporting spectrum was confirmed as the country’s No 2 sport, and the most popular summer sport by UMR Insight in its annual National Business Review-Compaq sports poll.The poll showed 67% of people were either very interested or fairly interested in cricket, an increase of 13% on the last poll in 1998.Anderson also said the website of New Zealand Cricket, nzcricket.co.nz had become the No 1 sports site in New Zealand over the past 12 months.”The site, hosted by CricInfo, attracted more than seven million page views during December 2000 compared to 5.8 million the previous December. This no doubt reflected the popularity of the women’s world cup.”However, one of the biggest areas of growth on the site during the 2000/01 summer was in the live scoring of Shell Cup and Shell Trophy; again affirming that although fewer people are physically attending matches, cricket remains a passion with a huge number of New Zealanders,” he said.Anderson also praised the efforts of Christopher Doig, who resigned as Chief Executive during the year.”The past five years have seen a period of unprecedented growth in the structures and business fortunes of New Zealand Cricket, building on the recommendations of the 1995 Hood Report.”The resignation of Christopher Doig as Chief Executive, in February, provided an opportunity for the Board of NZC to take stock of the considerable progress made under his stewardship and to reaffirm the organisation’s direction moving forward.”Christopher Doig had signficantly grown the revenue streams. His skill in securing sponsorships and commercial contracts provided the platform to professionalise the delivery of a number of facets of the game,” he said.