T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee pres­i­dent Bri­an Lewis em­pha­sised that con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form to re­flect good gov­er­nance prin­ci­ples, like one mem­ber one vote, would as­sist a long way in bring­ing sport in this coun­try to a com­mer­cial­ly vi­able sport in­dus­try.

Lewis said while the po­ten­tial is huge, a crit­i­cal suc­cess fac­tor is strong sport gov­er­nance sys­tems and pro­ce­dures.

"Many of the ex­ist­ing Con­sti­tu­tions un­der which na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions and na­tion­al gov­ern­ing bod­ies op­er­ate need to be mod­ernised and amend­ed to in­clude ba­sic uni­ver­sal prin­ci­ples of good gov­er­nance," Lewis said.

Lewis added the Min­istry of Sport, Sport Com­pa­ny of T&T and the T&T Olympic Com­mit­tee( TTOC) must co­op­er­ate and work to­geth­er to fos­ter, fa­cil­i­tate and en­able the nec­es­sary changes and re­form.

"We can't sweep the is­sue of poor sports gov­er­nance un­der the car­pet. It's not about mak­ing cos­met­ic changes. There is need for re­form.

"Some sports are op­er­at­ing in an un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic man­ner and aren't con­duct­ing their af­fairs in a trans­par­ent and ac­count­able man­ner."

Lewis re­mind­ed that at their 67th AGM last April, the TTOC ush­ered in con­sti­tu­tion­al changes when they suc­cess­ful­ly moved a mo­tion to stop out­go­ing ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers from hav­ing an au­to­mat­ic right to vote.

That mo­tion re­ceived the unan­i­mous sup­port of the na­tion­al sport or­gan­i­sa­tions and the TTOC ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee mem­bers in at­ten­dance back then.

To be el­i­gi­ble to vote at the TTOC AGM, start­ing from the 2017 term, out­go­ing elect­ed ex­ec­u­tive Com­mit­tee mem­bers must now be a du­ly ac­cred­it­ed del­e­gate rep­re­sent­ing a fi­nan­cial and vot­ing mem­ber af­fil­i­ate.

"The change re­mov­ing the au­to­mat­ic right to vote is a sig­nif­i­cant one with re­spect to sport gov­er­nance and the no­tion of free and fair elec­tion of sport lead­ers," said Lewis.

"The ul­ti­mate vic­tims of bad gov­er­nance and bad­ly struc­tured sport bod­ies are the ath­letes, chil­dren, youth and young peo­ple and the best in­ter­est and sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment of sport."

"Con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form is a pri­or­i­ty in T&T Sport," he con­clud­ed.