An­dre Bap­tise

It has been a tu­mul­tuous year for sport. There is just so much that is wrong with the "in­dus­try" in this coun­try that a 500-page nov­el would be re­quired to dis­sem­i­nate some of the per­ti­nent in­for­ma­tion.

Re­cent events like the shoot­ing of na­tion­al foot­baller Keron Cum­mings shines a poor light on sport.

It seems like there is lit­tle or no recog­ni­tion giv­en to rep­re­sent­ing your coun­try.

One would have thought that Cum­mings was well known in the area, and the re­spect, ho­n­our and pride he and oth­ers like him bring to this coun­try, would have meant some­thing.

It mat­ters not who you are and what role you play from rich to poor man, from beg­gar to thief to in­dus­tri­al­ist, there should be on­ly one dis­tinc­tion, that is we are all cit­i­zens of this coun­try and we cel­e­brate when our sport­ing per­son­al­i­ties ex­cel.

For this to hap­pen to Cum­mings is not on­ly a das­tard­ly act but al­so dis­turb­ing if in­deed there was an in­tent to ru­in his play­ing ca­reer.

This is the sad reck­less aban­don that sym­bol­is­es the men­tal­i­ty in this coun­try which af­fects more than just those in the streets or on the roads, but al­so those in ad­min­is­tra­tion in T&T.

And while no one can say that the reck­less dis­re­gard by the Crick­et Board (TTCBC) to lis­ten to the wider world, where one man one vote is now be­com­ing a re­al­i­ty from the days of dic­ta­tor­ship, it is very much the same thing, with­out a bul­let, and threat of life as the con­se­quence.

With­in the last few weeks, there has been a lot of dis­cus­sion on the pauci­ty of the West In­dies crick­et, and a lot is be­ing made of the fact, that while oth­er teams are not hin­der­ing play­ers who play in­ter­na­tion­al T20 crick­et, the West In­dies Crick­et Board are do­ing just that.

It ap­pears now that Su­ruj Ra­goonath and the TTCBC are fol­low­ing the leader with bad con­se­quences for our crick­et. They have dropped Reyad Em­rit as cap­tain of the na­tion­al team and ter­mi­nat­ed the con­tracts of some oth­er play­ers.

It is this pet­ti­ness that shows the in­ep­ti­tude of the TTCBC, al­though there are those that be­lieve that the cur­rent pres­i­dent Az­im Bas­sarath, is not in­volved be­cause he has oth­er af­fairs to deal with.

How­ev­er, as the "Boss," he must be held ac­count­able oth­er­wise he will be caught with his pants down and have to pay for all of this.

Foot­ball is on an­oth­er path­way with new strong lead­er­ship un­der David John Williams. How­ev­er there con­tin­ues to be a trend in this sport of a lack of fund­ing which ap­pears to have no so­lu­tion.

It is in­cum­bent that the Min­is­ter of Sports Daryl Smith starts to act soon in en­sur­ing the play­ers are hap­py and con­tent­ed and their pay­ments up to date.

This must be a pri­or­i­ty for Smith.

Like most of the coun­try, I have ab­solute­ly no faith in the Min­istry of Sports, nor the Sports Com­pa­ny un­der Michael Phillips but I do be­lieve there is hope.

John Williams' new ad­min­is­tra­tion has in­her­it­ed a lot of bad debts and needs as­sis­tance. There is no doubt that should the na­tion­al men's team progress to the next round of World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion, the en­tire coun­try will be in a bet­ter mood, as well as if our women's team can al­so gain as­sis­tance and ad­vance to the Rio Olympics for the first time ever, this coun­try may for­get many ills.

Oth­er sports, like bas­ket­ball, gym­nas­tics, swim­ming, cy­cling and box­ing, both pro­fes­sion­al and am­a­teur, con­tin­ue to be mired in mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion and with lead­er­ship is­sues which sti­fle the progress of our sport­ing sons and daugh­ters rather than al­low­ing the re­spec­tive sports to ex­hale.

A change in lead­er­ship of all of these in­sti­tu­tions can on­ly help, pro­vid­ing they al­low for free and fair elec­tions.

When one ex­am­ines the three sports that op­er­ate ef­fi­cient­ly, it is no sur­prise, giv­en their qual­i­ty of lead­er­ship, ath­let­ics un­der Ephraim Ser­rette con­tin­ues to lead the way in both per­for­mance and re­sults.

Their suc­cess is mea­sured and planned and most im­por­tant­ly con­tin­u­ous.

Like­wise both net­ball un­der Pat Butch­er and hock­ey un­der Dou­glas Ca­ma­cho, have qui­et­ly and smooth­ly gone about their busi­ness with­out much fan­fare, oth­er than pru­dent ef­fec­tive man­age­ment and this has cer­tain­ly worked for their re­spec­tive sports.

At the same time, it is no co­in­ci­dence that the Trinidad and To­ba­go Olympic Com­mit­tee, un­der cur­rent pres­i­dent Bri­an Lewis, con­tin­ues to set the bench­mark in terms of proac­tive think­ing and for­ward mar­ket­ing, while al­so en­sur­ing both trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

It is no sur­prise that many of the sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions in this coun­try have to en­gage the ser­vices of the TTOC, as me­di­a­tors in many of their mat­ters.

It is hoped that the lessons that are taught by the TTOC will soon en­able oth­er sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions to make bet­ter in­formed de­ci­sions.

Those who dare say ten or more Gold Medals by 2024 is a dream, re­al­ly do not un­der­stand the val­ue of sports and its im­pact on the minds and hearts of a so­ci­ety like ours.

And with the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio less than eight months away, every­one must unite around the TTOC as they seek to en­cour­age our ath­letes to be suc­cess­ful and im­prove on their per­for­mances.

A cou­ple of Gold Medals in 2016 is quite a pleas­ant thought for this coun­try, what­ev­er lies ahead.

Hap­py and pros­per­ous New Year to all.