Editor: In an article entitled “Radio station puts SVGFF’s president on mute: Show some respect – DeFreitas” published in the Searchlight of Tuesday, September 13, 2016, it was mentioned that at the opening ceremony of the COM SPORTS/KPMG Hairoun Brewery Arnos Vale Football League, the remarks made by this nation’s Football Federation president, Venold Coombs, were not broadcast on Nice Radio, which was carrying the ceremony live.{{more}}

Well, I think that those who listen are accustomed to that by now. That station is all about the almighty $$$. He who pays the piper calls the tune. They will also know that from 2001, this Government put in place that there is live broadcasting of the Parliament of this country and not one member of the Government side is allowed to be heard on that “not so nice” radio station; this is nothing new.

There are interactive sports programmes on radio stations in SVG: “Let’s talk sports” on NBC and “Sports Highlights” on Nice Radio. Both are welcomed by sports lovers home and abroad alike and of all the sporting organizations in SVG, the St Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation (SVGFF) comes in for the most criticism and so do their presidents, as far as I can remember: the late Scobie Taylor, St Clair Leacock, Dr Adrian Fraser, Ian Sheridan, Louis Daisley, Joey Delves and Venold Coombs. All of them were thin-skinned when it came to the issue of football. So, for Mr DeFreitas to say that Mr Venold Coombs does not want to be criticized is a big understatement. Everyone knows that Nice Radio will not carry a football game here in SVG or get a feed for an away game with Team SVG playing away from home for “FREE”.

The same president was giving the privilege to that station above the National Broadcasting Cooperation (NBC), even if football was not being played that station was being paid by the same Federation. I don’t know what was the cause for the fallout between the SVGFF and Nice Radio, but it looks like the death of the goose that laid the golden egg. Now I would like for someone to tell me who is more “disrespectful” and “out of place” than Mr Douglas DeFreitas, who was put on the board of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Electricity Services (VINLEC) as a nominal shareholder by Sir James Mitchell for some time, just attending board meetings and collecting money for just that. Had it not been for the event of 2001, he may have been a big time shareholder by now. But, out of his own mouth on another radio station, not his own station, he told the nation that he went to Bequia to the hotel of the same Sir James, and in the presence of his (Douglas DeFreitas) wife, told Sir James, a prime minister of this country for 17 and a half years: “Sir James keep your old a*s in Bequia.” If that is not “out of place” and “disrespectful” to the elder statesman and the country on a whole, please let me know. Or is it a case of the Biblical injunction not to “Beholdest thou that mote that is in thy brother’s eye” without considering “the beam is in thine own.” Thank you.

Freddie