President of the Trinidad and Tobago Gymnastics Federation Christopher George has come forward to clarify the funding issue affecting athletes aiming to represent the country at the CARIFTA Championships for Gymnastics. The Sport Minister Shamfa Cudjoe indicated the TTGF applied for funding late, but George says the situation is not as simple as it seems.
00:00In the first instance, Trinidad and Tobago Gymnastics Federation President Christopher George was asked how he intended to raise funds for the over 50 athletes selected to represent the country at the Carifta Championships at the end of November.
00:12Raising funds in Trinidad and Tobago is always challenging. I leaned upon my particular experience and I understand it's always challenging so I'll go back a little bit.
00:23I've represented Trinidad and Tobago at Carifta Games specifically in the sport of swimming and water polo and at that time in the 90s and early 2000s all athletes were self-funded.
00:35I think the attitude has changed with the development of the sport company of Trinidad and Tobago and the Ministry of Sport.
00:42But what generally happens is that events such as this one it's always difficult to I guess achieve funding from the government particularly at this developmental level because I believe that the Carifta Games is a developmental tournament.
00:58He said 85-90% of the event is being funded by athletes and their parents and said it was a short time frame for the government to provide support.
01:06Even though we've had to push through in a very short time frame from directives being given in July and August and the idea of Carifta Championships being generated in a very short time frame, a selection of a national team on November 3rd, the list was finalized on November 3rd and we had a presumptive list on October 15th.
01:27So a very very short time frame and I understand that with respect to the government and all institutions that's a very very tight time frame to provide support but we're not asking only for support through this championships we're hoping that the support is generated to further championships and this is a yearly or biannual opportunity.
01:50George also explained his position regarding the attending of meetings with the sport company after the sport minister indicated the TTGF had not been attending meetings.
02:00To my knowledge Trinidad and Tobago has always been in compliance with respect to operational plans because remember the 2024 cycle would have been funded based on documentation submitted in 2023 so I don't think that it was plainly correct surrounding issues of we're not attending meetings etc.
02:23I know what has happened between July and August is that there were requests from the sport company to submit documentation for the 2025 team, not the 2024, the 2025 team as is expected.
02:37What had happened because it is that we were generating the operational plan and we did not know the number of athletes that were actually going to go to Carifta Games, we did not attend meetings solely in August or September and it was in October we did have correspondence accordingly to the sport company.
02:56George said the sport company has asked for a tentative operational plan for next year as he's hoping for a resolution to the matter.
Be the first to comment