- May, 11 2009 -
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With a Gold Cup twice as large as ever before, CONCACAF’s logistical planning has grown substantially too.
About 100 people scheduled to work the region’s 10th biennial nations championship this summer descended on New York Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, getting strategic briefings from CONCACAF staff as well as officials from marketing partner Soccer United Marketing as to the plans, operational guidelines and personnel that will run the 23-day event.
“It was to give them a broad picture, as broad as picture as possible,” said Jill Fracisco, CONCACAF’s director of events who has worked every Gold Cup since the first one in 1991.
While about 90 percent of the attendees have worked in previous Gold Cups, they haven’t worked on one like this.
With the 12 teams playing in three groups over 13 cities from coast-to-coast in the United States beginning July 3 in Los Angeles and ending with the final July 26 in New York, a new management organization had to be established.
Instead of the teams confined to at most six cities, playing several games before moving, this time no one will remain in one place for more than one game. This has necessitated the management structure from being venue based, to one of an ever-moving “pod”.
Each of the three pods (or groups) will arrive in a city, play one doubleheader, move and do it all over again. About 200 people (four teams of 35-40 people each, a referee crew, plus CONCACAF staff) will fly in two chartered planes between each city.
People designated as pod managers (who will oversee all non-game related activity of the group), venue managers, general coordinators, venue press coordinators all gathered to meet each other, and – as as General Secretary Chuck Blazer put it – be friends for a day.
“Because when the tournament starts, you’re probably going to want something that the other person is going to be too busy to give you right away, and then you might not be so friendly,” Blazer told the attendees at CONCACAF’s headquarters in midtown Manhattan’s Trump Tower. “At least you can have an appreciation for what the other guy has to do and maybe smile.”
Spectators may only see what goes on from the moment they enter the stadium, and miss the behind-the-scenes movement that is necessary to get the teams to come out of the tunnel. And this year there will be more than ever.
