Controversial sports tourism strategy targeted ‘prawn sandwich’ soccer fans

Cayman tourism officials were granted a host of free match tickets and hospitality perks as part of a controversial package of sponsorships of UK sports teams.

‘Partner’s Lounge’ tickets to watch Portsmouth FC and meet the players, England rugby tickets, and VIP passes for Porsche motor racing events were all included in the series of deals, which cost Cayman taxpayers more than half-a-million dollars.

The point of the strategy, according to internal documents now disclosed in full to the Cayman Compass following a prolonged freedom of information process, was to “infiltrate people’s passions” by sponsoring sports teams.

Officials highlight “prawn-sandwich-eating corporate” football fans, as well as fee-paying public school graduates who play and watch rugby and hockey, as the key demographic to increase tourism from the UK. The Cayman Islands averages around 12,000 visitors annually from the UK, a figure which has remained largely static for 20 years, except for a dip during COVID.

A lot of the sports sponsorship efforts were focused on wealthy London suburbs close to Heathrow Airport.

The business case documents cite the relative affluence of Richmond and reference the fact that sports comedy ‘Ted Lasso’ was filmed there, for instance, as part of the justification for targeting spending on community sports clubs in that area.

The documents, including business cases and unredacted copies of contracts for agreements between the Department of Tourism and a host of sports organisations, were finally released to the Cayman Compass last week in compliance with a September directive from the Ombudsman following a near two-year freedom of information battle.

The strategy outline to be a ‘club partner’ with League One’s Portsmouth FC indicates that the Department of Tourism hoped to use the sponsorships as a catalyst for sports tourism to the Cayman Islands. 

An exhibition game between the Cayman national team and Portsmouth was tentatively slated for summer 2022, while a warm-weather training camp involving London Irish premiership rugby club was also proposed.

Neither of those tours or other spin-off opportunities proposed in the documents appears to have happened, however.

While the newly released and unredacted files include some interesting detail on what Cayman expected to get for its money, there are few dramatic new revelations to justify or explain government’s extended effort to keep them under wraps.

Based on the redacted documents, released last December, the Compass had already revealed that then Cayman tourism UK and Europe director Adrian White was linked to an amateur team that was receiving sponsorship funds from the DoT.

The unredacted documents show that White signed the agreement with the Old Cranleighans Hockey Club, a team he played for, on behalf of the DoT, as well as the other agreements.

White has since left the job, according to his LinkedIn page.

Citing confidentiality reasons, the DoT has consistently declined to answer specific questions about any investigation it conducted into potential conflicts of interest in the handling of sports sponsorships and if its London-based chief jumped or was pushed out.

It did provide a more general response to renewed questions from the Compass this week, indicating it had sent a senior official to London to provide management support and is in the process of restructuring the UK office, implementing mandatory training and introducing new checks and balances.

Its response is detailed in full at the foot of this story.

The DoT has previously defended its strategy of sponsoring sports teams, however, and has suggested that free tickets and similar perks are standard practice in such partnerships.

Information from the new dossier of unredacted contract documents reveals that:

• Portsmouth Football Club were intending to visit Cayman for a pre-season tour in 2022, partly funded by the DoT, as part of the partnership.
• London Irish rugby club’s contract also included the ‘opportunity’ for a warm-weather training camp in Cayman, part-funded by the DoT.
• Perks for the DoT included match tickets and hospitality tickets for Portsmouth and London Irish, as well as for Porsche motorsports and access to England rugby tickets.
• The Portsmouth sponsorship included a hospitality package for three games with four-course dinner and drinks and a chance to meet the team and have photos with the Man of the Match.

Premier League football too expensive

The justification for a sponsorship partnership with Portsmouth FC, which plays in the third tier of English professional football, cites high-profile branding deals between Arsenal and the Rwanda tourism board, and Malta and Manchester United, as examples of successful tourism board sponsorships.

It adds, “Price tags for Premier League and Championship partnerships usually start in the millions and rise according to the popularity/strength of the team… CIDOT does not have this level of budget to invest.”

It goes on to cite Portsmouth FC as a big name club, outside of the top two divisions, with a history of relative success, including winning the FA Cup in 2008.

The $125,000 (about CI$126,500 at current exchange rates) three-year investment entitled Cayman to have branding on a stand and in the programme, as well as on the club’s social media. The document suggested that around six of Portsmouth’s games could be televised each season and the branding would be within the view of the cameras.

It adds, “Whilst the demographic of the ‘typical’ football fan may historically not be considered the target demographic, the reality is that football is discussed at the most affluent levels with millionaires and billionaires involved in the game with the ‘prawn-sandwich-eating corporate’ arguably becoming the silent majority.”

‘Infiltrating people’s passions’

CIDOT sports sponsorship scandal

• Compass Investigation: Sun, sea and suspect sponsorships
• Tourism officials defend sports sponsorship strategy
• Tourism officials ordered to hand over sponsorship records to Compass
• Cayman’s UK tourism chief leaves role; officials silent over suspect sponsorships
• Unredacted freedom of information records
• Tourism splashed $30K on hotels and flights to send support to troubled London office

Of the money it planned to invest in sponsoring London Irish rugby club, the DoT wrote: “In an age where media is all around us, traditional forms of advertising are becoming ‘wallpaper’ – people tune out and advertising becomes a blur. The key for attention is to infiltrate people’s passions that people do care about.”

The outline – key phrases of which are repeated across nearly all the sponsorship business case documents – indicates that cricket, hockey, rugby union, football, cycling and running are considered the the most relevant sports to target in terms of participation levels. 

“All clubs within these sports are being investigated as long as there is a reasonable drive time to Heathrow… and cost of entry is [not] so high as to make the partnership unviable against other forms of advertising.”

The document specifically highlights rugby union as a sport with a fee-paying, public-school-educated fan base that is “100% with the Cayman target demographic”.

Among the potential risks of the £50,000 London Irish partnership, which was to begin in summer 2021 when UK sports were still heavily impacted by COVID, was the possible cancellation of games. In fact, many Premiership rugby games were played behind closed doors around that time because of social distancing requirements, though an increased number were featured live on the BT Sport channel.

Wealthy parents and fan base targeted

Sponsorships of less well-known hockey and rugby teams, like Richmond FC rugby club currently in the third tier of UK rugby, for example, were justified as targeting the area. The supporting documents indicate Richmond is one of the more affluent areas of London and cites the fact that the popular American television series ‘Ted Lasso’ was filmed there.

The strategy, it indicated, was to target wealthy parents of youth sports with an affluent demographic.

Similar justification was used for sports teams even lower down the food chain. The Weybridge Vandals was cited as a ‘dominant grassroots club’ located in one of the wealthiest towns in England, home to around 120 multi-millionaires and a number of fee-paying schools.

The justification for the sponsorship of the Old Cranleighans Hockey Club includes similar comments about an ‘affluent demographic’ for both the sport and the area.

The case for the sponsorship was signed by Adrian White, who, as the Compass detailed in previous stories, was a player and coach of the Old Cranleighans.

There is no mention of this association in any of the documents and, under the heading of possible risks associated with the partnership, the only threat highlighted is the possible cancellation of games.

The business case for a partnership with British Canoeing indicates that the return on such investment is likely to take three or four years to materialise, and possibly longer because of COVID.

There is no indication, however, of any tracking of the success of any of the investments or any reporting measures to indicate if the money spent translated into any increased tourism from the UK to Cayman from those areas.

Ministry of Tourism responds

The Ministry of Tourism didn’t respond to all of our questions about the sponsorships. It did provide some answers, however, to questions about what inquiries had taken place and what changes had been made as a result.

It stated:

“As previously shared, the CIDOT regards transparency and accountability in the workplace as being vitally important.

“When the potential for conflict of interest was identified, action was swiftly taken and senior leadership from the Grand Cayman Head Office was assigned to the CIDOT UK office to maintain business continuity.

“This ensured that the Cayman Islands European Marketing and PR strategy was fully executed and delivered on-time, and enabled the UK office to progress the European tourism recovery strategy.

“This translated into tangible results, with Ireland and the UK being the first and third fastest of our major source markets to recover to pre-pandemic levels for the period between January and September of this year – attaining 95% and 88% of 2019 visitation levels respectively.

“As a result of the review of business operations, the Department of Tourism is in the process of restructuring the operations of the UK office and has implemented a number of internal controls and risk mitigation techniques.

“These include:

• Mandatory Annual Training on Best Practices of the CIDOT policies and procedures organization wide. All members of the team will attend Annual Training on Best Practices of the Cayman Islands Government and the Department’s policies.
• Increased Monitoring and Spot Checks of Financial Information.”