Unpaid hockey coaches ready to quit

Newsday had reported Ministry deputy permanent secretary, Ian Ramadhin, saying that coaches would be paid after the Ministry’s completion of its Regularisation Study, ordered by a parliamentary committee to regularise the coaches’ statuses.

However, yesterday one hockey coach told Newsday that it is now three weeks into January and they have not been paid.

“It is depressing.

People are leaving their positions because they are not being paid. We are big people and we have bills to pay like anybody else,” the coach explained. The source said this state of affairs will harm sport. “We are getting the runaround all the time, ‘Yes, you’ll get paid’, but we have got nothing.

At Christmas, everyone was eating turkey and ham, but we were eating Crix and cheese,” he lamented.

The source said coaches are doing yeoman service in both social alleviation and identifying new talent to reach the highest levels, adding that the Ministry’s focus must not be on only funding the country’s elite athletes.

Ramadhin told Newday, “This is a priority matter on the front burner for the Sports Division to look at all of the coaches.” He hoped it will be resolved this month, for payments to be made to coaches “sometime in February”.

Ramadhin told Newsday that this matter affects coaches of all sports and coaches hired under various types of arrangement, such as by the Ministry, or by local communities or by the National Governing Bodies of various sports.

He said relevant documents have been submitted and are now being reviewed and tweaked.