Travel Warning Impact on Asian Attendance
Government issued travel warnings to Australia have seen five Asian teams withdraw from this year’s McDonald’s Kanga Cup despite seven Asian teams initially registering for the tournament.
Japan, Korea, China and India have all withdrawn their registrations for this year’s tournament following their respective government’s warnings against travelling to Australia due to the outbreak of Swine Flu.
“It’s a shame that most of our Asian teams have decided to withdraw from the 2009 McDonald’s Kanga Cup on the recommendation of their governments,” McDonald’s Kanga Cup Event Manager, Sarah Body said.
The very popular Asian Fellowship initiative which attracts financially disadvantaged Asian teams to the annual tournament will be without a recipient for the first time since its establishment three years ago.
“Unfortunately we’ve exhausted all our resources in search of bringing out a team to Australia for the week long tournament,” Body said.
“We initially had a Chinese team set to compete this year however we’ve just received news that they won’t be attending following travel warnings about Australia.”
“We’ve been working with the world-renowned Coerver Coaching Program to identify an Asian team who would be interested in attending the tournament but all teams have declined the invitations due to Swine Flu.”
According to the event manager, all precautions have been taken to ensure there’s no other major impact of Swine Flu during this year’s tournament.
“We’ve been working very closely with ACT Health on the matter and we’ve implemented a Health Risk Management Strategy in conjunction with the territory’s health care organisation,” Body said.
“The document not only outlines strategies to prevent any communicable diseases impacting on the tournament but also establishing a management system should any participants become a health risk.”
Two teams from both New Zealand and Chinese Taipei remain committed to attending this year’s McDonald’s Kanga Cup which kicks off with a huge number of 225 teams on Sunday, 12th July with the Opening Ceremony at the AIS Arena before concluding on Friday, 17th June.