Playing games with youths

HISTORY will be made when, for the first time, this country hosts the Commonwealth Youth Games which kicks off today.

Or at least that’s the plan.

Unfortunately, the games have been overshadowed by the public tussling between the Ministry of Sport and Youth Affairs and the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) over the site for beach volleyball.

The contract for hosting the games was signed a year ago, but up until Sunday the THA was awaiting a shipment of special sand from Guyana for a new site chosen in April. Eventually, officials assured the sand had arrived and the facility would be ready by Thursday afternoon, ahead of Saturday's first fixture.

Surely this is some kind of record.

The political back-and-forth between Scarborough and Port of Spain has now claimed its first major casualty. While the developments relating to the shifting of beach volleyball from Pigeon Point to Black Rock are hardly emblematic of the organisation of the games, they nonetheless cast a pall over the proceedings and hinder efforts to stoke public enthusiasm.

Shamfa Cudjoe, the Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, has already suggested the last-minute changes in Tobago may have diminished the Commonwealth Games Federation’s confidence in TT as the host.

It is not just the site for beach volleyball that was altered, but also athletics, which was moved from the Dwight Yorke Stadium in Tobago to the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Trinidad by Cabinet last November. Ironically, the Dwight Yorke Stadium had been the very first site to be confirmed with federation officials.

Ms Cudjoe, who lamented she had been unsuccessful in trying to contact THA executives, also noted the range of approvals that should have been locked in long ago, including from the Town and Country Planning Division and the Environmental Management Authority.

Meanwhile, Terrance Baynes, the THA Secretary of Community Development and Sport, sees things differently. According to him, it has been “disheartening” having to respond to “foolishness every minute.”

It’s not only the warring politicians who aren’t seeing eye to eye.

Police officers assigned to the games have been asking about the payment of extra duty fees, but this has been reportedly blanked by the Ministry of National Security. The State views the games as national duty.

Regrettably, the effort behind this tournament is being undermined by such squabbles. We note, with serious concern, the potential for further embarrassment if all this continues.

Approximately 1,000 athletes representing 70 countries will be on our shores for this event, many of them talented teenagers at the start of burgeoning sporting careers. We call on the public to embrace them, even if the public officials, who seem to want to play games more so than the athletes, fail to.