Sidebar

29
Fri, Mar

Typography
THIS IS not about the Under-20 football, nor the netball, nor cricket, nor any on-the-field activity. This is about the off-the-field support that all Jamaica sport enjoys, compared with the TT experience.


This is not about mass of fans cheering on the teams or the athletes competing for their countries.

This is about the up-front financial support Jamaica gets from their government and its corporate sector to prepare, train and compete.

But, more to the point, this is about the lack of any up-front financial support for Trinidad and Tobago athletes and teams by our government or private sector.

However, we are going to use football as the example, so to speak, for this exercise.

The Jamaica Football Federation recently acquired the services of Bora Multinovic as their coach. Bora has taken four countries to the World Cup namely Mexico, USA, Costa Rica and China. Our newspapers reported, as a side-story, this coup by Jamaica.

Jamaica will be paying Bora US$1,000,000 per year, and this does not include salaries of the support staff Bora will bring with him. The Jamaica government, and a group of corporate sponsors, will provide the money for the Jamaica Programme.

Then, on Wednesday, the Jamaica Gleaner published the story of Red Stripe Beer stepping up to fund the South Africa 2010 mission with J$100,000,000. Red Stripe, the beer of Jamaica, believes that this investment will benefit Jamaica, Jamaican football, and of course, Red Stripe.

And Red Stripe did not say to the Jamaica Federation, “If you qualify, we will step up and support you.” While the agreement allows Red Stripe the right to review the sponsorship should Jamaica be eliminated at any stage from the 2010 qualifying, it provides the critical “start-up” funding for the South Africa mission.

And what was the state of Jamaica’s football when the country decided to step forward and fund their programmes? The Reggae Boyz failed to get to Japan Korea ‘02 or to Germany this year.

In the Digicel Caribbean Cup, they failed to advance from their qualifying group, played in Jamaica, where they were beaten by St Vincen tand the Grenadines.

This means that they have not qualified to play in the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 2007.

Under such circumstances, we would expect that sponsorship support would simply dry up.

Here in TT, notwithstanding that we played with honour in the World Cup in Germany in June, finished third in the Caribbean Youth Cup Under-17 in August (Jamaica was fourth), and are in the Finals (albeit as host) for the Digicel Caribbean Cup.

Therefore we are still in the running for the Gold Cup but there remains no new sponsorship or support for South Africa 2010, the Gold Cup, the Under-20s (which the Young Warriors exited despite beating Jamaica 1-0 in the return leg on Thursday), the Under-17s or our women’s teams.

We, as we always do, are waiting to see if the teams qualify before we commit our support. Jamaica, recognising that the way to get the teams to qualify, is to provide them with the financial support and other resources needed to succeed, stepped up and became true partners.

Why is it that Jamaica seems to understand this need and we do not? The truth is: We fully understand.

When we qualified for Germany, and all through our time there, we had the media, and several part-time columnists writing about how the TTFF must not allow this feat to be a “one-and-done” experience.

I remember one column in particular. It was written by the senior economist of a major financial institution — his title and the company’s name headed the article. I was thrilled!

I recognise that I have failed to convince this country that there is tremendous commercial, cultural and social value in our sports, particularly football, and here was the senior economist of a major financial institution telling the country of the importance of planning for, and qualifying to play in South Africa.

So I called the good gentleman, to enlist his support for the mission. “Leave me out of that, Peter!” was the response I got. His employers contributed nothing to the Journey to Germany, but they did join after Bahrain so they could identify with the qualifying team.

They were not alone, as others put nothing into the Soca Warriors’ effort until the team qualified.

What is it that can cause Jamaicans to rally when their team is down, while TT, coasting on the glory of Germany, puts absolutely nothing into our football?

If Jamaica qualifies and we do not, will we see editorial comment, and will local business chide the TTFF “that we should get a programme like Jamaica”?

The money to pay the Jamaica coaches is in their Federation’s bank. The money to pay the TTFF coaches is also in the bank, but it will stay there, because there is no need to pay our coaches.

Apparently, we intend to leave that to Jack Warner. But Jack has said that he will no longer pay the team’s coaching staff, and I understand the last salary they got was for October.

Jamaica has US$1,000,000 for their coach. We have zero for ours. What can we expect when we play against Jamaica in 2008 and 2009 as we battle for a place in South Africa?