Bright spot in sport

WE HAIL last week’s election of son-of-the-soil Brian Lewis to the new Sport Integrity Global Alliance (SIGA). As president of the Trinidad and Tobago Olympic Committee (TTOC), Lewis has a major role to play in battling the ills facing the sporting fraternity and his presence on the SIGA and interim council sends a signal, both locally and internationally, that integrity in sport is essential moving forward.

An organisation like SIGA – which was founded in 2015 – is needed now more than ever. The world has been rocked by a seemingly never-ending stream of sport scandals including sex abuse in US gymnastics, state-sanctioned doping in Russia and China, corruption in FIFA, as well as match-fixing and drug abuse in almost every sport.

We might pause though for a bright-spot moment to recognise how politics has taken sport to new and historic heights with one time arch-enemies North and South Korea marching together at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, under one flag and also having a joint team to compete at ice hockey.

But SIGA is the only organisation which brings together sport, governments, academia, international organisations, sponsors, business, rights holders, NGOs, and professional services companies from every region in the world around a common cause of fostering sport integrity. This holistic approach is essential if wrongdoing is to be combatted across borders.

Corruption in sport affects all who have an interest in it. For example, drug-doping scandals render competitions mere shams, undermining trust and also unfairly setting back the careers of sportswomen and men who genuinely work hard to try to achieve their goals.

We have had our taste locally of the price that is paid, ranging from having some star sprinters disqualified at events on the international stage due to failed drug tests, to being denied certain medals due to the cheating of other teams. Fraud and corruption charges in relation to Caribbean football officials such as Jack Warner are also pending in court.

All of these issues not only hurt our sportswomen and men, they impugn the character of our nation on a global stage. Therefore we must see to it that sport is always above board. Is our anti-doping law being properly implemented?

In his address to the SIGA Sport Integrity Forum in Rome last week, Lewis struck the right note, calling for profound reform. Importantly, he asked SIGA to address racial, gender, social, cultural and class issues which can foster discrimination, ultimately enabling poor governance.

“We must challenge convention and the status quo, and set a new course,” Lewis said. How right he is.