Sports organisations meet today

FIFA Vice President Jack Warner has set up a forum involving sporting organisations entitled “Improving Relationships — Government, Media and Sports” to be held at the Ken Galt Auditorium at the Dr Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence from 6 pm today. Warner will be among the main speakers and invitations has also gone out to officials from the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs while representatives from the various sporting bodies have agreed to be part of the forum.

Warner explained on Monday his reasons for wanting to stage such a forum. “This whole thing came about because of the fact that the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs sent out letters to the various sporting bodies threatening them about their inability to pay fees for the use of Government facilities for training. “It is the most  ludicrous thing I’ve heard and I felt that all the sporting bodies should get together to deal with the problem collectively,” Warner said. “It is an insult for any sporting official to debar sporting bodies from using facilities for not paying. I am therefore calling these people as a moderator to discuss this problem but also I think the time has come for all these bodies to have a federation of sports bodies to deal with common problems rather than having to address the ministry one by one,” he said.