Even one-night concerts in places like Central Park have to pay rental fees of as much as $2m, Benepe says, and those events are free to the public. The World Cup would be a perversion of that: a major sporting event taking over a public park for free, to charge people hundreds of dollars a ticket. “That would never have been allowed before,” he says.

The other red flag is that while the ICC has verbally pledged to repair the park afterward, it hasn’t offered to put up a restoration bond – typically a few million dollars – to ensure that it follows through. If the Dubai-based organization were to abscond after the Cup, “there could be no way to go after them legally to get the money back”, says the former official.

Taking away the place where locals play, in order to charge them to watch a tournament for a promise the fields will be upgraded later. A promise they won’t guarantee.

I’m confused. The article has a picture of a big crowd at Citi field watching a T20 game it says was one of a three game series. But there is no other mention of just using Citi field for the international tournament.

It’s possible there are scheduling conflicts with other sports or contract reasons. But it seems wanting to expand and broaden the sport with a big pro contest would be served better in an existing professional sports venue instead of taking over community fields.