There were mixed reactions on Tuesday from sports administrators about the government's allocation to sports via the budget presentation, which was read on Monday in the Parliament, Port-of-Spain.
Finance Minister Colm Imbert announced that sports' 2021 allocation of $404,613.209 for recurrent expenditure was revised to $347,233.837. And the allocation for the fiscal year 2022 will be $427,208.000. This came on the back of an overall $52.4 billion package which carried a deficit of $9 billion.
Imbert, following a near four-minute session on sports, also revealed that the government will facilitate the return of international sports such as matches during England's tour of the West Indies in February, an international P1 Powerboat event that same month and the Under-19 Cricket World Cup in January.
The government had also been involved in refurbishment and upgrade work on many community sports facilities during the period of the lockdown, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, three administrators - Azim Bassarath, the T&T Cricket Board (TTCB) president, George Comissiong - the acting president of the National Association of Athletics Administration (NAAAs) and Robert Hadad, chairman of the FIFA-appointed Normalisation Committee said they were pleased with the contribution to sports while Douglas Camacho, chairman of the Sport Company of T&T (SporTT), believes sports should have been given more.
Camacho, who is out of the country presently, said: "It seems like, unfortunately, sports has not gotten an increased allocation, even though the budget itself overall was increased and there were a few heartening comments made by the Minister of Finance as it relates to sports.
"Particularly with regard to the opening of playing to the sporting public and the issue of refurbishment intended for the various national facilities which are good news, I'm not seeing the corresponding budgetary allocation to really enable those things to be properly executed upon.
"Obviously, I will have to go through it in detail and see what the line items are, where funds have been allocated in detail etc, but from a long-range view, that will be my initial thing."
Camacho said while he knew about both the Under-19 cricket and the powerboat event which will be used as a sports tourism initiative, he was unsure about T&T getting matches from the England tour, noting: "With regards to the English tour, my understanding is that Trinidad is unlikely to be one of the selected countries unless something untoward happens in one of the preferred countries with direct flights from the UK.
"So I would be surprised if Trinidad does end up getting anything as it relates to the English tour."
Hadad meanwhile, welcomes the return of football but believes there should have been tax incentives for businesses investing money into sports.
"I'm excited for football to return to play. I'm excited about the opportunity, I think it will be a great move for the country and we're looking forward to the return to play.
"We're also excited about meeting with the Ministry of Sport, I see some discussions yesterday (Monday) around the ministry's support for upgrading the stadia and I'm very excited about that because we definitely need some work there,"
Comissiong, on the other hand, told Guardian Media Sports: "We were generally happy with its brief comments on sports, its role in nation-building. It remains on the national agenda. There were three elements of particular interest in the sport of athletics. Firstly, there are expectations of a return to normalcy in 2022 with sporting events and fans in attendance.
"He did say it was dependent on the success of the government's vaccination programme. As you may be aware, the NAAAs has held a few events for the year and we know that it is not quite the same without the fans and supporters cheering and urging the athletes on, so we are anxiously looking forward to having the fans back."
Bassarath, who will be seeking another term at the helm of the cricket board, said he was very happy with what he has heard.
"I heard they will be improving some facilities across the country, and they will also be bidding for U-19 World Cup matches.
"If the National Governing Bodies (NGBs) approach the Sports Company for help, I believe they will be given the help they need at this point in time."