media_artricles :: 2015

Sports Ministry to implement mediation plan

MINISTER of Sport and Youth Affairs, Darryl Smith is advising stakeholders in the country’s various national sporting organisations (NSOs) to desist from airing their disputes in public. And the former national youth footballer says a new entity is soon to be created under his ministry that would be available to resolve issues.

The minister made the statement during a brief address at the media launch of the National Gas Company’s extension of their “Right On Track” initiative with the National Association of Athletics Associations (NAAA) and the National Basketball Federation of Trinidad and Tobago (NBFTT ).

Smith cautioned NSOs and other interested parties against public sparring that could turn potential corporate sponsors away.

“As you know, for whatever reason it may be, there’s been a lot of bacchanal going on in sport, not just locally, internationally,” he began.

“And as a private sector, when they (corporate TT ) have money to divvy up with regards to sponsorship... they have to sit down and make a decision with regards to where their money will go. But if we in sport tend to continue our way having these issues ventilated in the public, we’re going to turn off sponsors.” Smith suggested that a system need to be created to bring feuding parties together and resolve disputes away from the eyes and ears of the public.

“To bridge that gap that I spoke about, we need to ventilate stuff and have the maturity to deal with things internally,” he continued.

“And it’s another thing that you’ll be seeing soon from the ministry that we started working on, is a mediation process.

We will now have our legal team looking at it, where if there is any issue among or between members of a board or different sporting organisations or different stakeholders, it doesn’t have to be ventilated in the media.

We’re shooting ourselves in the foot.” Smith did not name any organisation or individual.

“So pretty soon you’re going to be seeing that mediation plan where people can come together and discuss things and ventilate it,” he went on.

“If it’s not a solution that is solved, then the ministry will get involved a little deeper, but I want to have a hands-off approach.”

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