As we look ahead to the 2026 sport­ing sea­son in T&T, I am re­mind­ed of the words of the Ital­ian philoso­pher Nic­co­lo Machi­avel­li, who has been de­scribed by some as ruth­less but prag­mat­ic, which, at best, are con­tra­dic­to­ry in some ways.

So, I will list some of his fa­mous quotes and try to iden­ti­fy if they can have a mean­ing­ful im­pact on our sport­ing as­pi­ra­tions in 2026.

​A) “The ends jus­ti­fy the means.”

Does this mean we should sac­ri­fice the "qual­i­ty" of our foot­ball for suc­cess or would we rather play "pret­ty" foot­ball and have noth­ing to show for it? It is cer­tain­ly a dis­cus­sion worth hav­ing.

As it re­lates to crick­et, can any­one jus­ti­fy the con­tin­ued faith in Dar­ren Sam­my as coach/se­lec­tor of the West In­dies team giv­en the poor re­sults of the past nine months—un­less, of course, the West In­dies man­age to shock the world and win the T20 World Cup in March 2026?

B) “It is bet­ter to be feared than loved, if you can­not be both."

This may rest square­ly on the shoul­ders of many in sports ad­min­is­tra­tion in T&T, as some of our sports lead­ers lack the prop­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills, whether with their own ex­ec­u­tives or ath­letes and worst with the me­dia, who some be­lieve are their en­e­mies, so they at­tempt to in­stil fear and threat­en ac­cess.

It should be not­ed that there are some in the me­dia in a sim­i­lar spot when their over­all boss be­lieves that sports are not im­por­tant and they are con­stant­ly treat­ed like the bas­tard child in the me­dia fam­i­ly at their re­spec­tive ad­min­is­tra­tion, and this is ap­par­ent in all facets of me­dia, from Tele­vi­sion. Ra­dio to news­pa­pers.

​C) “The wise man does at once what the fool does fi­nal­ly.”

When we ex­am­ine what the trans­for­ma­tion in lead­er­ship with­in lo­cal swim­ming and its pos­i­tive im­pact on young swim­mers. Why haven't oth­er ad­min­is­tra­tions learned from this and fol­lowed suit? I dis­agree with this quote; it is nev­er too late to change. "Late" is still bet­ter than "nev­er," be­cause at least the sport will have a vi­sion and a path­way. The biggest fools are those who ig­nore the signs and that is why clubs must ex­er­cise hon­est judg­ment and clar­i­ty of mind.

​D) “The promise giv­en was a ne­ces­si­ty of the past: the word bro­ken is a ne­ces­si­ty of the present.”

This is a dan­ger­ous prece­dent that has be­come "par for the course" in our sports. Too many say one thing to be elect­ed and be­fore the ink dries on their writ­ten ap­point­ment, it is clear those promis­es were false and nev­er in­tend­ed to be fa­cil­i­tat­ed.

This mind­set that you can break your words to ath­letes is a ter­ri­ble sin and we should not al­low any ad­min­is­tra­tor to es­cape un­scathed in 2026, com­pared to what hap­pened in 2025, but again, we prob­a­bly need the in­ter­ven­tion of a strong Min­istry of Sports and Sports Com­pa­ny T&T (SporTT).

E)” Men are dri­ven by two prin­ci­pal im­puls­es, ei­ther by love or by fear."

There is no love in sports, as for many who are pro­fes­sion­als, it is se­ri­ous busi­ness and should be treat­ed as such by both men and women once they seek to rep­re­sent their coun­try in their re­spec­tive sports. For far too long, we have lis­tened to some and been as­tound­ed by oth­ers who claim that T&T women are not up to the mark to com­pete in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. The ques­tion has to be, al­ways, why?

Is it be­cause the sports or­gan­i­sa­tions show more love to men in terms of sup­port, fi­nan­cial and oth­er­wise or is that the men are stronger men­tal­ly?

In T&T, we con­stant­ly hear the cry that our women are so beau­ti­ful and care so much about fam­i­ly life that their ca­reers are cut short by this love over the love of suc­ceed­ing in sports.

I have to ad­mit I do not be­lieve so and I be­lieve we have young ladies that can ex­cel if we be­lieve in them, as is the case in cy­cling with a lot of tal­ent­ed ladies and sim­i­lar­ly in track and field, from 100 me­tres to 4x100m re­lays. Let us not lose faith in 2026

F) “The first method for es­ti­mat­ing the in­tel­li­gence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.”

This can be so mis­lead­ing, even if at times it may be true, be­cause these days it is prob­a­bly bet­ter to ex­am­ine the ages of the per­sons around the leader, as the old­er guys ap­pear not to have any fight in them. Per­haps when they were younger, they were strong but with age, not on­ly comes rea­son but it ap­pears as well that their rai­son d’etre is all that mat­ters.

There are al­so clear signs of dis­as­ter by some of the per­sons that lead­ers in sports or­gan­i­sa­tions sad­dled us with; it is al­most as if they are re­pay­ing a debt.

G) “Whoso­ev­er de­sires con­stant suc­cess must change his con­duct with the times."

This is yet an­oth­er fea­ture in sports in this coun­try as many times per­sons are quick to iden­ti­fy Sports Min­is­ters as the ma­jor rea­sons for fail­ure in sports but I wish to again re­peat in 2026, that in my view it is those that work be­hind closed doors, those face­less per­sons at the Min­istry of Sports, some who have been there for years as a gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ee that stand in the way of our sports­men and sports­women. I will al­ways re­call in­ci­dents where our lead­ing sport­ing per­son­al­i­ties and some per­sons in the grant /elite fund­ing sec­tion, which were both dis­taste­ful and dis­re­spect­ful, ul­ti­mate­ly the Min­is­ter gets the blame but this is very un­fair.

I hope that in 2026, these pub­lic ser­vants who know them­selves get some heart and act pro­fes­sion­al­ly in their roles in the best in­ter­est of our sport­ing sons and daugh­ters.

This is an­oth­er warn­ing to our sports lead­ers about their at­ti­tudes. I have to say that I wit­nessed this at­ti­tude chang­er from some of our fe­male lead­ers; it is al­most as if they be­lieve they have to prove they are “bad” and some­times “ar­ro­gant “to make a mark. Un­for­tu­nate­ly for most of them, it is a fail­ing mark.

H)” He who wish­es to be obeyed must know how to com­mand."

Lead­ers are born is a com­mon state­ment by some claim­ing to be in­tel­lec­tu­als but the re­al­i­ty is that on many oc­ca­sions, the com­plete op­po­site is the case.

We are at a stage where mod­ern times re­quire proac­tive and vi­brant lead­er­ship, tak­ing ad­van­tage of so­cial me­dia and its wider ap­peal. But sad­ly, for some of these lead­ers, it is com­plete­ly alien to their life­long thought process­es.

And in their fledg­ing ef­forts to give out com­mands on top­ics and ar­eas they are un­fa­mil­iar with, they bold­ly stum­ble from what mis­step to an­oth­er, obliv­i­ous to their own faults. Come on, get it right!

I) “The more sand has es­caped from the hour­glass of our life, the clear­er we should see through it."

If on­ly this were true, it would not on­ly be sport­ing as­pects/mo­ments in our life that would be brighter but our en­tire peace and har­mo­ny. How­ev­er, as I look in­to the 2026 Sport­ing Hori­zons, I have to won­der if all of this mis­placed sand in our sport­ing do­min­ions has caused too much sport­ing slip­page.

It can on­ly be hoped that af­ter all these years of poor man­age­ment in the sport that is clear­ly vis­i­ble at last, that prop­er chan­nels are utilised to en­sure we get the best per­sons in in­flu­en­tial roles in sports.

J) “Every­one sees what you ap­pear to be; few ex­pe­ri­ence what you re­al­ly are."

This, I have in­ten­tion­al­ly left for last, be­cause there are many times in life when peo­ple in sports are mis­un­der­stood, which leads to a lot of prob­lems, both per­son­al and off the field.

A lot of us, my­self in­clud­ed, may wish for a Crys­tal Ball, but that is not as easy as it sounds and we know Crys­tals are nat­u­ral­ly rat­ed high­ly, even if they can be hard to de­ci­pher with an or­di­nary eye.

So, in 2026, let us not judge every­thing based on pa­per or pho­tos, but in­stead try to un­der­stand the com­plex­i­ties of a per­son and their sit­u­a­tion in and out of sports.

Be­lieve, and you might just achieve.