Tennis head wants ‘fully funded’ explanation

PRESIDENT of the Tennis Association of TT Hayden Mitchell, says for national athletes to be “fully funded” money has to be given to athletes in their preparation leading up to events.

Sport in TT will have to operate with roughly the same amount for the upcoming year, as the sector was allocated an estimate of $280,000,000 for 2019. The 2018 estimate was $281,407,827, before that figure was revised to $260,438,382.

Mitchell was speaking after Minister of Finance Colm Imbert said all sports teams and athletes will be “fully funded” when he delivered the budget, yesterday.

Imbert said, “Madam Speaker, many of our teams have qualified for the highest level of tournaments. I assure this honourable house, by extension the national community, that all of our national teams will be fully funded.”

Imbert said the national netball team will be supported for the 2019 World Cup, along with the TT women’s team for the 2018 CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying tournament which starts on Thursday.

It was only on Friday the national women’s footballers received funding from the Government, after players pleaded for help on social media just weeks ago leading up to the World Cup qualifiers.

Imbert also reminded the public that the women’s volleyballers, who are currently participating in the Women’s World Volleyball Championships in Japan are being backed financially.

Yesterday, Imbert said the athletes are filling the country with pride. “They are making our country proud with a sense of pride not seen for many years.”

Mitchell wanted to see sport receive more money saying, “If it is the same amount as last year, really that is not enough to develop sport.”

Mitchell said helping athletes before events is important, and is unsure what the Minister of Finance meant by “fully funded”. “...I heard that they said that national teams will be fully funded. I don’t know what exactly that means. For a national team to be fully funded, is it that they going to compete away, or is that the preparation (will be funded) because half the time they are not properly prepared. Going to the event is one thing, but the preparation before is very important...I don’t know what is the exact definition they using as fully funded.”

President of the Amateur Swimming Association of TT Wendell Lai Hing is concerned that the sporting facilities are not being fully utilised. “My main concern basically is the non pushing of the sports tourism. For example, if you inject a little more money into the product, meaning sport and the facilities that we have, it would allow us to market the facilities a little better and get the synergy between sport and tourism,” Lai Hing said.

Lai Hing thinks the upcoming year may be a challenge with the same funds from last year. “The same allocation from last year to this year means we will have a difficult year again, but I do hope they understand with these great facilities that we have we can’t sustain it domestically.”

Lai Hing said the National Aquatic Centre in Couva is one of the best swimming facilities in the western hemisphere and more regional and international events can take place in TT. “Domestically, we have good usage, thanks to the Ministry and the Minister (of Sport Shamfa Cudjoe) we have usage of the facility...we don’t want it to stop there, we want to be able to use the facility and bring revenue to the facility by having the foreign counterparts be a part of it.”