Timely intervention is a must

As painful and heart wrenching it may be, it must be sounded and echoed that St Vincent and the Grenadines is not where it ought to be in sports.

In fact, we are in the back row, looking at others in this geographical zone, with similar size, population and facilities.

Whilst there is no perfection in sports, or other spheres of life, we here in St Vincent and the Grenadines are having an unprecedented scroll of downsides, both on and off the field.

We are just doing things for doing things sake, without that clear pathway towards a desired objective.

The end result is that whatever are the consequences of our performances, they are accepted and documented as normal outcomes.

This is so because there seems to be an acquired nonchalance and tinges of disregard for sports here.

Sporting events take place and that is that! We host regional and international competitions and little evaluation is done about the positive impact such events have on our economy.

And, as the matter of the importance of sports is being ventilated in this forum, St Vincent and the Grenadines will, for the next week, welcome close to 600 visitors directly for tournaments.

On the plate are the ITF Junior tennis tournament, the senior Caribbean Area Squash Association (CASA) championships and the Hamilton Lashley Foundation Charity Shield Football competition.

Seemingly, these endeavours are slighted, with only a mention that they are happening.

Our laid-back approach towards sports, and the socio-economic spin-offs which are accrued, have unfortunately not been given the significance as part of the social transformation package.

No one though, is immune from blame for the state that we are in; hence, a collective responsibility must be shouldered, policies framed and decisive actions taken, if we are to excavate ourselves from this rot.

Fear is that if we don’t buck the emerging trend, we can see fewer and fewer persons getting involved at all levels: administration, active players, officials, spectators and certainly, the handful of corporate sponsors.

But where do we start? This column, therefore, advocates a national conversation on sports. It is a conversation which is long overdue, but has become a necessity in light of the many challenges that our country is facing.

Yes, there is a tripartite meeting of national associations, the National Sports Council and the National Lotteries Authority annually; this type of interfacing is far from adequate with the issues at hand.

Hence, the call for a broader spread of persons in all sectors. This is so because sports overtime is serving several purposes, pertinent to national development.

As it is now, stakeholders in sports here operate in a vacuum, and in most instances, rudderless.

In the process of reaching the stage of fixing our sports, national associations, individually and collectively, have to get their houses in order.

They are the ones at this time who from their structures and operations, are not setting up the programmes and policies to ensure growth.

Government and its supporting agencies too, must operate in unison with the framework which emerge from the proposed national discussion.

Therefore, instead of waiting on the successes of individuals and national representative teams, they have to play a more integral part in the entire affair.

St Vincent and the Grenadines, with its pools of natural talent, has survived too long in the shadows of their regional counterparts, simply because we have not put sports in the bracket of national importance.

So, calling for a timely intervention in the manner in which sports in St Vincent and the Grenadines is structured is paramount.