All things considered, and taking one thing with another, I think it is fair to say that the cricket World Cup of 2007 really was the worst sporting event in history. It went on for match after match after match, and practically all of the matches were dull. It was like the couple copulating in the next room: you can’t believe they’re still at it, or still want to be.

Can anything compare in tedium and anticlimax? Let me think. The great boycott Olympic Games of 1980 and 1984 had their share of anticlimax, but they also had people such as Zola Budd, Daley Thompson, Steve Ovett and Seb Coe to speak only of Britain, to speak only of track and field. Even at its worst, the Olympics still had something going for it.

The rugby union World Cup of 2003 had plenty of longeurs. At six weeks, it was nearly as long as the last cricket World Cup. I didn’t fly out until the last fortnight. The tournament began with scorelines such as England 84 Georgia 6. One of the problems here is that players can only manage one game a week, because it is a collision sport. That makes for protracted gaps.

But that 2003 tournament was at least great for the last three weekends, as is usually the case. It was all the guff before that made you consider giving up. Once you get to the meaningful games, any competition lights up.

In other words, knockouts good, leagues bad. This was a lesson learnt by the football World Cup after 1982, in which England went home without losing a match.

But the World Cups of 2002 and 2006 were still both a little on the dull side. Football World Cups are increasingly short of revelations of greatness, whether of teams or individuals. They are mostly played by people we see often, and these days, they’re knackered before they start.

Club football is killing international football, never mind that international football is the bigger game. Short-term expedient is invariably dominant over long-term strategic thinking.

But even the bloated 32-team tournament of the modern football World Cup is done and dusted in a month. Alas, you can no longer follow every nuance of the action and the dramatic emergence of character and talent – who can, with three matches a day to watch in the opening phases?

But no football World Cup has matched the tedium of the 2007 cricket World Cup. It had everything, mismatches, one-sided games, games that didn’t matter much, games that were simply short of action or drama or interest. International sporting organisations across the world are invited to study this event long and hard: it is the perfect template for the ruination of a sport. For a start, the basic product is flawed. Fifty overs is the most tedious form of cricket ever devised. The powerplay regulations have helped a bit, but not enough. Huge tracts of most matches involved nudging and nurdling defensive bowling through defensive fields at 4.5 runs per over, one side not trying to score heavily, the other not trying too hard to take wickets. And that’s not cricket.

Then the tournament, in its desire to seem truly global, had far too many no-hopers. Bermuda, indeed. After that, the so-called Super Eights required 24 games to reduce eight teams to four. That is exactly 20 too many. We should have gone straight to knockout, high-stakes games compel, low stakes games have you wondering what’s on the movie channels.

How can sports administrators make such crass errors? Simple. They aren’t interested in sport. They are interested in power. The more countries you involve, the more power you have. The more money you make from a multination tournament, the more power you have. As a result of this simple rule, all World Cups in all sports have become exercises in revenue-raising and colonisation.

The way to make a good sporting event is to ensure that your priority is excellent sport. Nothing else matters. Money and colonisation should be incidentals; instead, they have become priorities, aims to be pursued at the direct expense of sporting excellence.

All the great sporting competitions of the world, with the possible exception of the Olympics, have taken the same wrong road. That’s because administrators want the money and the power that goes with a bloated tournament and thousands of hours of television. They don’t care that it produces tedious sport. No one has told them that if sport gets tedious, we – the people who matter – will stop going or watching or caring.

Moral: every sporting tournament should have sporting excellence as its sole aim. Anything else betrays the spectators, the television viewers, the athletes and sport itself. And now, with the cricket World Cup of 2007, we at last have the perfect example of this principle.

Who was in charge?

Jeff Crowe (48, match referee) Solid former New Zealand batsman and, later, national manager, who joined the ICC refereeing panel in 2004
Steve Bucknor (60, onfield umpire) First umpire to officiate in 100 Tests, the Jamaican was supervising his fifth World Cup final
Alim Dar (38, onfield umpire) Usually unobtrusive figure from Pakistan who has enjoyed a rapid rise since being appointed to the ICC panel aged 34
Rudi Koertzen (58, third umpire) Personable South African who broke David Shepherd’s record of 172 one-day internationals during the competition
Billy Bowden (44, fourth umpire) Diligent New Zealander famous for his crooked finger, caused by arthritis, and his extravagant signalling