Sev­er­al Na­tion­al Gov­ern­ing Bod­ies (NG­Bs) view sports as an in­come gen­er­a­tor that the gov­ern­ment should pay at­ten­tion to, and are hop­ing for a de­cent al­lo­ca­tion to go to­wards sports in the Na­tion­al Bud­get when it is read in the Par­lia­ment to­day.

Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo is ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er his maid­en bud­get, with much in­ter­est cen­tred on promis­es made in his gov­ern­ment’s man­i­festo ahead of the Gen­er­al Elec­tions, cou­pled with re­cent de­vel­op­ments of re­cent job cuts, to the non-pay­ment of salaries and back­pay, as well as the gov­ern­ment’s at­tempt to gen­er­ate rev­enue through the now con­tro­ver­sial Drag­on Gas deal with neigh­bours Venezuela. 

Four of the NG­Bs spoke to Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day—foot­ball, bad­minton, box­ing and ten­nis—have ex­pressed this, be­liev­ing that monies gar­nered here will be used for oth­er ma­jor projects, and for sports.

In 2024, sports re­ceived $39 mil­lion, which was a sig­nif­i­cant in­crease from the pre­vi­ous year, un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) un­der Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert. 

The T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, Kieron Ed­wards, Chan­dri­ka Ram­sub­hag, the pres­i­dent of the T&T Bad­minton As­so­ci­a­tion, Ce­cil Forde, pres­i­dent of the T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, and Ten­nis TT pres­i­dent Hay­den Mitchell said they’re see­ing more redi­rec­tion of re­sources to be used for the de­vel­op­ment of sports.

Guardian Me­dia Sports is­sued a snap­shot of the view giv­en by the NGB heads. 

Kieron Ed­wards

Ed­wards, who was re­cent­ly ap­point­ed to the FI­FA De­vel­op­ment Com­mit­tee and has been a dri­ver be­hind the coun­try’s qual­i­fi­ca­tion process for the FI­FA World Cup next year, told Guardian Me­dia Sports, "I ex­pect sport to be a key part of the gov­ern­ment’s plan, in terms of youth and youth de­vel­op­ment. We know about the fi­nan­cial chal­lenges that the coun­try faces, but based on the last cou­ple of months, in terms of re­tool­ing var­i­ous min­istries, and cut­ting wastage, we hope that those funds that were re­cov­ered and will be re­cov­ered in months to come, will be giv­en to key ar­eas like sports, and we’re op­ti­mistic that we will have a good bud­get.”

He added, “ If in keep­ing with pre­vi­ous sports al­lo­ca­tions un­der the cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter in her tenure back in the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship regime, sports would have got­ten an in­crease in its al­lo­ca­tion for every year for that pe­ri­od, and we hope that it con­tin­ues be­cause we know the im­por­tance of sports and we know the Prime Min­is­ter is keen on in­clud­ing sports as part of dis­ci­pline at schools, and have the youth use it as a tool to help ed­u­cate them­selves, so we look for­ward to a good bud­get when it comes to sports. 

"Al­to­geth­er, I hope to get fur­ther sup­port for sports. You would have seen what sports did through Keshorn Wal­cott, with the TKR (Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers) squad, and of course, foot­ball, so we just want to fur­ther that. I would have had dis­cus­sions with the Min­is­ter of Sports and Youth Af­fairs, Phillip Watts, in terms of fur­ther­ing that.

"We’re look­ing to go in­to the pri­ma­ry schools to bring foot­ball out, tap­ping in­to the pri­ma­ry schools and sec­ondary schools, and bring­ing them on­line with our de­vel­op­ment. So we’re along those lines, see­ing some good­ies for sports and un­der­stand­ing the im­por­tance of it, where it unites the coun­try and where it unites peo­ple, so I’m con­fi­dent that we will have a good bud­get when it comes to sports for cer­tain,” Ed­wards said.

Chan­dri­ka Ram­sub­hag

"I think they’re clean­ing house, so they’re get­ting rid of all the wastage, so I think that the mon­ey they’re go­ing to save, which is sig­nif­i­cant, should im­pact on the bud­get. I think it's all in per­cep­tion, and what you do with the mon­ey. So the mon­ey is not go­ing to change in the trea­sury, but it’s how you pri­ori­tise. If you cut back on cor­rup­tion, as the gov­ern­ment says, then there will be mon­ey avail­able to al­lo­cate to oth­er projects that ac­tu­al­ly need it. So, I think where they’re do­ing a lot of cut­ting and re­struc­tur­ing, that would re­sult in a lot of sav­ings for the coun­try, and those funds can be used for de­vel­op­ment and oth­er projects.

“I think we should see a lot more for sports. The ear­ly dis­cus­sions with the Min­is­ter of Sports are that they’re try­ing to give each sport­ing dis­ci­pline its space, so I think we should see a home for bad­minton com­ing up soon, as well as fund­ing for tour­na­ments. We have an ap­pli­ca­tion in­side, be­cause we’ll be host­ing Care­ba­co and an open in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ment from the 1- 9 of No­vem­ber, so we’re hop­ing to see fund­ing com­ing in for that as well. But long term, I think they’re go­ing to give each NGB its own home.” 

Ce­cil Forde

"I ex­pect that a Box­ing board will be named soon. We need a box­ing board, and we al­so need to let them know that box­ing is the grass­roots for all sports, and if the gov­ern­ment is se­ri­ous about tak­ing sports to the com­mu­ni­ties and us­ing sports as a ve­hi­cle for de­vel­op­ment, es­pe­cial­ly with the young kids to­day, they have to look at box­ing. They have to get in­to the com­mu­ni­ties and es­pe­cial­ly those that are at risk.

“Sport is im­por­tant, they know that, but the oth­er min­istries, such as ed­u­ca­tion and crime, would ob­vi­ous­ly take pri­or­i­ty over sports, and we have ex­pe­ri­enced that over the years. This first bud­get, based on what’s been hap­pen­ing re­cent­ly with the suc­cess of the ath­letes at the World Cham­pi­onships and cy­cling, etc, will make an ef­fort to give sports some­thing, but I am not ex­pect­ing that there will be any great over­flow in­to sports.

“Sport is an in­come gen­er­a­tor, and we have the in­fra­struc­ture for it. A lot of mon­ey has been spent in the past, and we have the in­fra­struc­ture. We have prop­er venues that are un­der-utilised, but with a lit­tle in­vest­ment at this time, we can gen­er­ate some funds.”

Hay­den Mitchell

Pres­i­dent of Ten­nisTT, Hay­den Mitchell, be­lieves a quick win for the gov­ern­ment would be to look in­to sports as an in­come gen­er­a­tor through sports tourism, as well as ad­dress­ing the is­sue of ath­lete ac­com­mo­da­tion. 

Mitchell said, “I would like to see the sports com­pa­ny get a big­ger share of the bud­get. Part of the bud­get, in terms of sport and sport de­vel­op­ment, needs to go to the de­vel­op­ment of sports through the NG­Bs, be­cause the NG­Bs have not re­ceived any de­vel­op­ment mon­ey for more than five years, and this is to de­vel­op the grass­roots sports, so I think if that is done, we would see a greater ex­pan­sion of sports and in terms of grass­root de­vel­op­ment through­out all sports, and we’re just not talk­ing crick­et and foot­ball, but all sports.

“I would al­so like to see a greater em­pha­sis on sport tourism, and max­imis­ing the as­sets that Trinidad al­ready has, the sport­ing as­sets, through the NGB, and re­al­ly putting a clear plan to­geth­er for sport tourism, and not just giv­ing it lip ser­vice.

"I would like to see the new gov­ern­ment pay that kind of at­ten­tion to sport as a rev­enue gen­er­a­tor, be­cause, re­al­ly, there have not been prop­er case stud­ies in terms of the eco­nom­ic im­pact on sports in rev­enue gen­er­a­tion. I can talk about ten­nis, for in­stance, when we host in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ments, we will host ITF ju­nior tour­na­ments. You’re talk­ing about the ath­letes alone; there are over 100 ath­letes, and with these ju­nior ath­letes, they trav­el with par­ents, and they trav­el with coach­es and so on. So from that spin-off, you’re go­ing to have ac­com­mo­da­tion, whether it’s ho­tels, Airbnb, you have car rentals, you have food. There is a whole mul­ti­ply­ing ef­fect that hap­pens when you host these tour­na­ments, and that has been over­looked for many years.

“The oth­er thing that is a clear chal­lenge for sports and sports tourism, even though we have all these ma­jor as­sets, is prop­er ath­lete ac­com­mo­da­tion. We can­not host any big ma­jor tour­na­ment be­cause we don't even have the num­ber of beds to put peo­ple in. I re­call hav­ing one of those Pan Am Mas­ters tour­na­ments, and you’re talk­ing about 1,000 ath­letes, but you don’t even have 1,000 rooms in T&T, well, at least in Trinidad.

“I think a quick win for the gov­ern­ment would be to ad­dress the ath­letes' ac­com­mo­da­tion and re­al­ly put a lit­tle more em­pha­sis on sports tourism, be­cause that is a ma­jor in­come gen­er­a­tor, and we al­ready have all these bil­lions in sport­ing as­sets that can­not be ful­ly mon­e­tised un­less we put the oth­er pieces of the puz­zle to­geth­er.”