Af­ter not re­ceiv­ing sub­ven­tions from the Gov­ern­ment since 2018, the T&T Bad­minton As­so­ci­a­tion (TT­BA) and its pres­i­dent Chan­dri­ka Ram­sub­hag hope for a turn-around with sev­er­al tour­na­ments planned and tour­neys to at­tend in 2025.

Be­cause of the lack of sub­ven­tions, the sport has had to ask play­ers and coach­ing staff to dip in­to their pock­ets to at­tend tour­na­ments, hop­ing that they would be re­im­bursed. How­ev­er, that too is al­so to be hoped for.

Ram­sub­hag ad­mit­ted that his as­so­ci­a­tion has had to en­gage in fund-rais­ing ini­tia­tives to find their way through lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al events as well, how­ev­er, this year the sport is set to get go­ing ear­ly in 2025 with a ju­nior and se­nior rank­ings tour­na­ment, a Sec­ondary Schools Bad­minton Tour­na­ment, and the Ju­nior and Se­nior Na­tion­al Bad­minton Cham­pi­onships which will be used to se­lect teams for in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions such as the Care­ba­co Bad­minton Cham­pi­onships among oth­ers.

The new year will get go­ing with the Ju­nior Rank­ing Tour­na­ment which will be con­test­ed over two week­ends in Jan­u­ary, at the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre (NRC) in Tacarigua from Jan­u­ary 18-19, and then it will con­tin­ue from Jan­u­ary 25-26 at the same venue.

From that bad­minton tour­na­ment, the TT­BA will head straight in­to the Sec­ondary Schools Bad­minton Com­pe­ti­tion which will be con­test­ed in two tiers.

Ac­cord­ing to Ram­sub­hag, Tier A of the tour­na­ment will cater for more ad­vanced play­ers while Tier B will deal with play­ers who have not been in­volved in the sport for a long time.

That tour­na­ment will take place at the South­ern Re­gion­al In­door Sports Are­na in Pleas­antville for Tier B, how­ev­er, Tier A will take place at the NRC.

All these tour­na­ments Ram­sub­hag said, would re­quire a sig­nif­i­cant amount of fund­ing.

"The Rank­ings Tour­na­ment is used to pre­pare play­ers for the Na­tion­als and from the Na­tion­als we will be se­lect­ing teams for the Care­ba­co which is set for Au­gust in Bar­ba­dos. We will al­so se­lect teams for oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tions next year, and I think the Pan Am is an­oth­er," Ram­sub­hag said.

Ear­li­er this year the lo­cal bad­minton boss and his as­so­ci­a­tion had to ask play­ers to fit their own bill for the Care­ba­co in Au­gust and the Pan Am which was held in Ju­ly, with the hope of be­ing re­im­bursed. He told Guardian Me­dia Sports yes­ter­day that to date the play­ers and staff mem­bers have not yet been giv­en back their mon­ey as sub­ven­tions have not been forth­com­ing.

"We are bom­bard­ed by calls dai­ly from play­ers etc ask­ing when are they go­ing to be re­im­bursed. All we say is that the funds were not re­ceived," Ram­sub­hag said.