The an­nounce­ment by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar that the UNC Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs is Phillip Watts has been re­ceived by those who know him well with en­thu­si­asm and hope.

In some of his pub­lic state­ments even be­fore he was an­nounced as Min­is­ter of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, he placed great em­pha­sis on his be­ing “very ac­ces­si­ble to con­stituents” and as­sured them they would nev­er feel for­got­ten.

Mean­while, Tu­na­puna MP Roger Alexan­der has in­di­cat­ed that com­mu­ni­ty build­ing will form the cor­ner­stone of his rep­re­sen­ta­tion, stat­ing that “as a man of the ground, the time has come for us as a na­tion to get to­geth­er and stop see­ing colours and race.” The em­pha­sis of both first-time MPs will be a source of ea­ger an­tic­i­pa­tion for grass­roots con­stituents.

The Things That Mat­ter col­umn of Tues­day, 22 April 2025, made the point that the wis­dom of the grass­roots mat­ters.

I ref­er­enced a re­cent World Aquat­ics vis­it to Trinidad and To­ba­go and as­sert­ed that their grass­roots out­reach will bear fruit in time to come.

I al­so made men­tion of an East­er Sun­day con­ver­sa­tion at the Mal­oney Sport and Fam­i­ly Day at the Clay­ton Ince Recre­ation Ground with Clay­ton Ince, a for­mer na­tion­al foot­baller. And de­scribed the con­ver­sa­tion as re­al, sin­cere and au­then­tic.

I fur­ther stat­ed that maybe it’s my Bel­mont up­bring­ing. But I re­main stead­fast in my view that the wis­dom of the ground and grass­roots mat­ters, as over the years it’s from the ground that some of my best ideas de­rived. It has al­so served as a con­duit for much-need­ed feed­back. I ad­di­tion­al­ly made the point and re­mind­ed that as we strive for ex­cel­lence in all ar­eas with­in sport, the wis­dom of the ground/grass­roots de­serves to be heard and lis­tened to.

The ground/grass­roots mat­ter – those who for­get that the wis­dom of ground/grass­roots mat­ters do so to their detri­ment.

Giv­en the po­ten­tial of sport to con­tribute to the sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic and so­cial de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, those who know the new Min­is­ter of Sport have point­ed to his ex­pe­ri­ence as a busi­ness­man and en­tre­pre­neur and his in­volve­ment and sup­port of sport at the grass­roots/com­mu­ni­ty lev­el as a pos­i­tive. He has al­ways had a keen in­ter­est in sports.

As the coun­try makes the tran­si­tion from one gov­ern­ment to the next, lead­er­ship mat­ters and the coun­try mat­ters. Be not afraid. One con­stant in life is change.

The im­por­tance of good gov­er­nance in achiev­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion­al ob­jec­tives can’t be over­stat­ed. Trans­paren­cy and fis­cal ac­count­abil­i­ty will al­ways mat­ter and are es­sen­tial.

From the grass­roots of the pyra­mid struc­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go sport. It’s al­ways im­por­tant to re­mem­ber that clubs are the lifeblood of many sports, as they bring to­geth­er in­di­vid­u­als with com­mon in­ter­ests who wish to take part in a par­tic­u­lar sport. Most clubs are mem­ber­ship as­so­ci­a­tions op­er­at­ing for the ben­e­fit of their mem­bers.

Sport clubs are the main place where grass­roots sport is de­vel­oped, and they are a pri­ma­ry source of in­creased par­tic­i­pa­tion. At the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el, sport clubs can ben­e­fit in more ways than one to the wider com­mu­ni­ty.

Sport clubs play an im­por­tant role in the Trinidad and To­ba­go sport pyra­mid and its suc­cess. It’s of­ten for­got­ten that the foun­da­tion of the pyra­mid is grass­roots sport clubs.

The most im­por­tant as­set for any sport is peo­ple who give their time and have a pas­sion for their par­tic­u­lar sport.

In the com­ing weeks Things That Mat­ter will fo­cus at­ten­tion on sport gov­er­nance re­form and mod­erni­sa­tion, in­clud­ing the dis­tinc­tion be­tween gov­er­nance and man­age­ment.