Bri­an Lewis

Pub­lic and me­dia opin­ion seem to be square­ly in the cor­ner of T&T sport. Every­one ap­pears to agree that sport can do won­der­ful things for this coun­try.

Opin­ion sur­veys will prob­a­bly show that pub­lic sen­ti­ment and mood is that our sports­men and women and na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions must be fi­nan­cial­ly sup­port­ed. Nowhere is there any­thing but over­whelm­ing sup­port.

No mat­ter where you go, the pre­vail­ing opin­ion is that sport can play a ma­jor role. No ar­gu­ment. As far as the ma­jor­i­ty is con­cerned, there is a vi­sion for the role of sport in T&T. Why isn't that strong vi­sion and over­whelm­ing sup­port not trans­lat­ing in­to fi­nan­cial sup­port?

Some have ar­gued that sport here is suf­fer­ing from a lack of re­spect for process and struc­ture. In the ab­sence of a sys­tem­at­ic dis­ci­plined way of do­ing things, there is no way a co­her­ent im­ple­men­ta­tion plan can be put in place.

How can there be over­sight re­spon­si­bil­i­ty if every chief, cook and bot­tle wash­er run in dif­fer­ent di­rec­tions all hell bent on do­ing their own thing?

How do we build re­spect for process and struc­ture, de­vel­op more or­gan­ised struc­tures and work with­in guide­lines? It can­not be done hel­ter skel­ter.

There are a num­ber of groups and or­gan­i­sa­tions do­ing ex­cel­lent work with­in lo­cal sport. Loads of mon­ey ap­pear to be float­ing around. So why is sport strug­gling to at­tract fund­ing? Is it a per­cep­tion or a re­al­i­ty?

There are those who sug­gest that with­in sport, fund­ing is not go­ing to the peo­ple and groups do­ing the best work with a proven track record. How do you sep­a­rate fact from fic­tion?

What can't be de­nied is that sport in T&T is in need of fund­ing.

Where is it go­ing to come from and who will pro­vide it?

If you want an ex­cel­lent ex­am­ple of a sport pro­gramme that most peo­ple feel de­serv­ing of sup­port, the Ed­die Hart Foot­ball League is one.

I at­tend­ed the open­ing of the Ed­die Hart League at the Tacarigua sa­van­nah on Sun­day. The League is cel­e­brat­ing its 48th year.

The en­thu­si­as­tic gath­er­ing in­clud­ed Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Tu­na­puna and Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, the Ho­n­ourable Win­ston Dook­er­an, chair­man of the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, al­der­man Ed­win Good­ing and deputy chair­man Es­mond Forde and jus­tice Se­bas­t­ian Ven­tour.

The gath­er­ing high­light­ed the pow­er of sport to cross the di­vide, be it pol­i­tics, class, so­cial stand­ing, race and re­li­gion.

The vi­sion and en­er­gy of the league's founder re­mains undi­min­ished, notwith­stand­ing the fact–as he al­lud­ed to in his ad­dress–that there are many ob­sta­cles and tribu­la­tions.

That Hart has cham­pi­oned the cause of the League for 48 years is a re­flec­tion of his in­domitable will and pas­sion for sport, the com­mu­ni­ty of Tu­na­puna, foot­ball, the young men and women and chil­dren who par­tic­i­pate in the league.

The pres­ence of the Po­lice and Prison bands and steel bands cre­at­ed a pa­tri­ot­ic Trin­bag­on­ian am­bi­ence.

The march past had a va­ri­ety of dis­plays, some more cre­ative and pre­cise than oth­ers. The ex­hi­bi­tion match be­tween two Pro League teams Massy Cale­do­nia Aia and San Juan Jabloteh sig­naled a mes­sage that sport has no bor­der­line.

How­ev­er, one couldn't help but sense an un­der­tone of frus­tra­tion at the fact that the League is still in an an­nu­al strug­gle to at­tract the fund­ing and fi­nan­cial sup­port that is need­ed.

It no longer makes sense to ask why.

The re­al ques­tion may well be: Why do we tol­er­ate and ac­cept these con­tra­dic­tions in our so­ci­ety?

Bri­an Lewis is the Pres­i­dent of the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee. The views ex­pressed are not nec­es­sar­i­ly those of the Olympic Com­mit­tee.