Moonilal: Govt not a fan of cricket
By Peter balroop
Millons of viewers of the BBC’s Fast Track programme are seeing T&T’s shame of the unfinished Brian Lara Stadium in Tarouba in living colour on a daily basis in the run-up to the start of ICC Cricket World Cup matches this week.
This according to UNC Oropouche MP Dr Roodal Moonilal who told the Lower House at Friday’s sitting that the Fast Track commentator made a point of stating during the programme that the stadium named after the world’s premiere batsman was not ready on time to host any of the CWC matches.
T&T’s shame
The camera, Moonilal said, zooms in on bulldozers at work on the stadium’s grounds and he said this was how T&T was being portrayed to the world.
Before a ball was bowled, compliments of Fast Track, China and Taiwan had gotten the benefits of being seen as competent, because the stadiums they built, respectively in Grenada and Barbados were featured in detail.
He said he was making his comments with regret and sadness but the reality was the current T&T Government had no interest in cricket, and supporting cricket.
Failed efforts
Moonilal recalled that it was in the midst of the abortive attempt—that cost taxpayers over $40 million—to promote T&T as the headquarters of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) that the Government deliberately declined to bid for a bigger share of hosting the CWC games.
The Local Organising Committee, he declared, had to beg Prime Minister Patrick Manning on the eve of the closing of bids to submit T&T’s proposals for the brown package involving India, Sri Lanka, Bermuda and Bangladesh.
To compound the fact that the Government was “anti-cricket,” Manning had stood in the House and confirmed that T&T was more interested in the FTAA headquarters than hosting CWC games, and preferred those Caricom neighbours that had tourism as their main source of income to capitalise on the opportunity that presented itself.
He said the recent match in which T&T beat Barbados at Guaracara Park highlighted his point that the Government was not too enthused by the game of cricket since not one Government Minister was on hand to see the T&T team achieve the victory.
Moonilal regretted, too, that the Government had reneged on its promise to negotiate with the ICC well in advance of the games so that national cricket fans would have been able to express themselves culturally with their music, food and drink while witnessing the matches.
He remembered that Sports Minister Roger Boynes had assured that negotiations would have taken place for a relaxation of the strict rules that the ICC wanted in place.
The reality was there was no flexibility; nationals could not take musical instruments to the matches, and vendors were banned, so fans had to fork out $18 for a beer, $12 for a bottle of water and $6 for a doubles.
The rationale was it was a world class event, so world class prices were being charged.
But according to Moonilal that was not good enough, and even at the 11th hour the Government should seek to intervene to assist suffering cricket fans.
“Right now you need to eat and drink well before you go to cricket; they have priced out a lot of the fans,” Moonilal said.
©2005-2006 Trinidad Publishing Company Limited
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