Outgoing Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee president Larry Romany said the nation's children no longer seem interested in sports.
Romany was speaking at the 18th annual TTOC Awards Ceremony at the National Academy for Performing Arts in Port-of-Spain on Saturday.
The local Olympic boss said despite the success of our Olympic athletes, more must be done to encourage the nation's children to love sport. "We don't see a sustainable pathway at present for the development of sport in Trinidad primarily because the young people in Trinidad and Tobago are no longer interested in participating in sport. This is not a simple solution. It is a generational problem and we have to work assiduously to solve this problem. This means that we have to target kids in primary schools and secondary schools and try to give them back that passion, that love they need in order for them to participate."
Romany added, " We have about 125,000 kids in our primary schools in Trinidad and we estimate that less than 20 per cent are interested in sports. That means that fewer than that actually participate, and therefore we have a real problem in terms of us celebrating sports at the end of the day. We have a lot to celebrate but we need to have our children love sports."
Romany told the audience that sport is important to society. "Most people see sports purely as recreation, fitness and health but we don't understand that sports is absolutely necessary for us to understand who we are for us to learn the value of social interaction and who we get along with one another."
The TT Pro League chairman added though that over 3,000 children have been taught the values and understanding of play. He also announced that the function was his last at the helm of the TTOC.
He noted there will be changes in the TTOC. "From here on, the Olympic Committee is going to move to a different level. We came to one level in 1996 and we moved to a different level by 2008.
Today starts a new era and I guarantee you over the next eight years you will see the Olympic Committee moving to an entirely different arena in terms of sports management."
The 2000 Olympic team chef-de-mission added that the TTOC has collaborated with the Ministry of Education to monitor obesity among the nation's schools. "We have started an initiative where we are measuring the obesity of every child in the primary schools because this will give us an understanding of where the real challenge is. With the help of the Minister of Education and the Ministry of Health and John Hopkins University, these figures will be analysed and programmes will be put in place."