The time is now!

There must be ac­count­abil­i­ty in sports ad­min­is­tra­tion in T&T. For too long, as a coun­try we have al­lowed sport­ing ad­min­is­tra­tors to run ri­ot over our sports­women and sports­men and while in most if not all cas­es it is dif­fi­cult if not im­pos­si­ble to in­ter­fere with the ad­min­is­tra­tion of these na­tion­al sport­ing or­gan­i­sa­tions, there is one area that can be ad­dressed.

The Sports Com­pa­ny of T&T (SporTT) is fail­ing T&T. There does not ap­pear to be any ef­fort to ad­dress the ob­vi­ous flaws and in­ef­fi­cien­cies that are as bright as a lit-up Christ­mas tree.

The most re­cent in­dict­ment on SporTT re­lat­ing to the poor main­te­nance (yet again) of the Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre's (NAC) pool fa­cil­i­ties, led to a war of words be­tween the new ad­min­is­tra­tion of the Aquat­ic Sports of Tr&T (ASATT) and of­fi­cials from SporTT over the con­di­tion of the swim­ming pool for a planned na­tion­al cham­pi­onship sched­uled for a start on Sun­day (Jan­u­ary 26).

Amidst all of the talk over the last few days both on so­cial me­dia and else­where in swim­ming cir­cles in T&T, that the pool did not look com­pe­ti­tion swim-ready in terms of con­di­tion and colour from both a health and safe­ty as­pect, SporTT was de­fi­ant and in a re­lease on Sat­ur­day sought to dis­miss all the con­cerns of ASATT and oth­ers by stat­ing the fol­low­ing:

"The Sports Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SporTT) wish­es to ad­dress re­cent con­cerns re­gard­ing the con­di­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion pool at the Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre (NAC). SporTT re­mains com­mit­ted to main­tain­ing the high­est stan­dards at its fa­cil­i­ties to en­sure a safe and en­joy­able en­vi­ron­ment for ath­letes, coach­es, and spec­ta­tors.

"From 16 to 22 Jan­u­ary 2025, the truss­ing above the com­pe­ti­tion pool and spec­ta­tor stands un­der­went nec­es­sary clean­ing. As part of this process, pro­tec­tive cov­ers were placed on the com­pe­ti­tion pool from Jan­u­ary 15-23, to safe­guard the wa­ter from de­bris and oth­er con­t­a­m­i­nants. How­ev­er, as is typ­i­cal when pools re­main cov­ered for ex­tend­ed pe­ri­ods, some al­gae growth oc­curs due to re­strict­ed sun­light and air cir­cu­la­tion.

"SporTT be­gan clean­ing the pool walls and floor im­me­di­ate­ly up­on re­mov­ing the cov­ers on 23 Jan­u­ary. The stan­dard re­cov­ery process for pool wa­ter typ­i­cal­ly re­quires 3-4 days, and every ef­fort is be­ing made to fast-track this process to en­sure the pool is com­pe­ti­tion-ready by Sun­day 26 Jan­u­ary.

"SporTT takes ut­most care in the main­te­nance of its fa­cil­i­ties and op­er­ates on a rig­or­ous dai­ly main­te­nance sched­ule for all three pools at the NAC.

"The mis­in­for­ma­tion that is be­ing cir­cu­lat­ed on­line is ter­ri­bly un­for­tu­nate. SporTT as­sures the Aquat­ics Sports As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ASATT), as well as all stake­hold­ers, that the com­pe­ti­tion pool will meet the re­quired stan­dards in time for Sun­day’s event.

"We thank the pub­lic for their un­der­stand­ing and con­tin­ued sup­port as we work dili­gent­ly to pro­vide world-class fa­cil­i­ties for our ath­letes and sport­ing com­mu­ni­ty."

That was a re­lease at 3.31 pm from SporTT on Sat­ur­day (Jan­u­ary 25).

How­ev­er, in a mas­sive sting in the tail of SporTT, ASATT sent this re­lease be­low at 5.45 pm al­so on Sat­ur­day (Jan­u­ary 25).

"To All Ath­letes, Coach­es, Par­ents, and Stake­hold­ers.

"Ref: Post­pone­ment of the ASATT Na­tion­al Sec­ondary Schools' Swim Meet 2025.

"The Aquat­ics Sports As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ASATT) has made the de­ci­sion to post­pone the Na­tion­al Sec­ondary Schools' Swim Meet, orig­i­nal­ly set for to­mor­row, Jan­u­ary 26, 2025. The event will now take place on Feb­ru­ary 9, 2025.

"This post­pone­ment is a nec­es­sary pre­cau­tion due to on­go­ing main­te­nance at the Na­tion­al Aquat­ic Cen­tre, which may ren­der the venue un­suit­able for ath­lete par­tic­i­pa­tion. The safe­ty and well-be­ing of all our swim­mers is our ut­most pri­or­i­ty.

"We sin­cere­ly apol­o­gise for the late no­tice and any in­con­ve­nience this may cause. We ap­pre­ci­ate your un­der­stand­ing and sup­port as we ad­dress this mat­ter and en­sure a safe en­vi­ron­ment for our ath­letes."

So, in the end, we have to again ask, what is go­ing on with SporTT? It ap­pears as if they rushed out a re­lease amidst con­tin­u­al pres­sure to de­liv­er fa­cil­i­ties and failed to face the re­al­i­ty and yet again now cast se­ri­ous doubt on their knowl­edge and as­sess­ment of sit­u­a­tions.

His­to­ry has shown in the treat­ment of our hock­ey-bound World Cup team next month, that it ap­pears our ath­letes are not al­ways giv­en pri­or­i­ty over the earn­ing of a few dol­lars here and there.

There­fore, is it that for a few dol­lars more or less they don’t have the req­ui­site staff to look af­ter the main­te­nance of fa­cil­i­ties? It can make you ner­vous to con­sid­er what would hap­pen af­ter the Hase­ly Craw­ford ren­o­va­tion is com­plet­ed in March, which SporTT will be the one giv­en the pow­er to main­tain. My on­ly con­so­la­tion is that the of­fi­cials/staff at Hase­ly Craw­ford con­tin­ue to be the most hon­est and ef­fi­cient that there is around at the mo­ment.

Let us all hope that the Min­istry of Sports and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, prop­er­ly call in both the chair­man Lar­ry Ro­many and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Ja­son Willams to ad­dress the re­cent lack of trust and faith that ap­pears now to be fer­ment­ing with­in and around SporTT.

I have said be­fore that the re­mit of SporTT needs to be re­vised and the re­al pur­pose they were es­tab­lished un­der Ger­ald Fer­reira and Ken Butch­er bet­ter di­ag­nosed. Our ath­letes who would have thought they were the pri­or­i­ty have found them­selves be­trayed by self-in­ter­est, self-pro­mo­tion and to­tal self­ish­ness.

This lat­est in­ci­dent which has raged on is ex­treme­ly sad and made worse by the fact that the SporTT of­fi­cers and lo­ca­tion are a mere 200 me­tres in walk­ing dis­tance away from the Aquat­ic Cen­tre, so how no­body knew of the sit­u­a­tion is per­plex­ing if not dis­taste­ful.

To con­tin­ue to make ex­cus­es for per­sons may sug­gest a sad in­dict­ment on all at SporTT which would be un­fair and sug­gest that per­sons can do as they please at the sport com­pa­ny.