Lequay leads interim sports committee

CHIEF EXECUTIVE officer (CEO) of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board (TTCB) Alloy Lequay has been elected as the convenor of an interim committee which will deal with the main issue of the use of facilities for training of various national sporting bodies.

Also named in the seven-member committee are Clayton Blackman, president of the National Basketball Federation (NBF); National Amateur Athletic Association head Ken Doldron; Richard Brathwaite who will represent football, as well as representatives from motor-racing, netball and hockey. Netball and hockey personnel were noticeably absent from a forum of all National Sporting Bodies, entitled “All Government Sports Facilities Pay Their Way” at the Ken Galt Auditorium, Dr Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence, Tunapuna on Thursday night.

The event, organised by FIFA president and Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) advisor Jack Austin Warner, dealt with the topic of local sporting organisations having to pay to use sporting facilities. Addressing the gathering Warner said: “we see sports as casual recreation, which must not encroach on our business or even social life but in the first world and many countries of the third world, the value of even recreational sport is understood, appreciated and encouraged. “It is ironic that European countries send coaches out here to develop our sport but the facilities here for the development must be paid for by the local organisations,” he continued.

Stressing that the majority of our sporting administrators are unpaid volunteers who have to balance sport and the regular source of employment, he noted: “it is not incompetence or bad administration which prevents sports organisations from showing a profit. “It is the cost of equipment, the cost of training, the cost of travel — going overseas and bringing teams here, and the cost of accommodation, for our teams overseas and for visiting teams here and there are no revenues for most sports, and too little revenue for our major sports (cricket and football,” added Warner.

Following on the heels of Warner’s address, Lequay showed the audience a copy of the National Sports Policy draft from 2000, stressing that the document was supposed to be implemented in 2001 but Government’ lax approach saw it fade into oblivion. And advisor to the Ministry of Sport, ex-football referee Charles Branche, replied to Lequay’s wish, stating that his Ministry will be hosting a retreat at Crowne Plaza Hotel, Port-of-Spain on January 24 to deal with the Sports Policy. Among the administrators who aired their views at the open-forum event were Blackman, Doldron, Brathwaite, Anthony Hart (judo), Peter Inglefield and Brian Lewis (rugby).