Local Organising Committee (LOC) chairman for the 2022 Carifta Games, Mike Fennell, has admitted that the recent decisions barring spectators from local sporting events have caused a reshuffle in their plans for getting approval for spectators for the event in April.
Local Government Minister Desmond McKenzie announced last Wednesday that requests for fans to attend the international cricket matches during Ireland’s tour of the West Indies as well as the semi-finals of the 2021-22 schoolboy football season were rejected because of the increase in COVID-19 cases and the threat of the Omicron variant.
In a Sunday Gleaner interview in November, Fennell said that having a full capacity crowd at the National Stadium for the games has to be an objective for the committee. However, he now says that the current surge in cases has caused a rethink in their overall plans for the games, not just their proposal for fan attendance.
“There is no question that with the recent surge in cases one cannot be surprised that certain strong decisions had to be made. We are in a period where we have to be reviewing our plans almost on a daily basis because the circumstances are changing and the situation is unpredictable,” Fennell told The Gleaner reporter Daniel Wheeler.
“We really don’t know how things are going to turn out but, obviously, we have to make our plans on the basis that we are being very positive and trying to ensure that we have (the games here).”
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