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Slothful registration of clubs a GABA plague
-association to move ahead without them
By Edison Jefford
The registration of its affiliated clubs and the establishment of administrative structures were the real
David Carto
reasons basketball in Georgetown did not enjoy a fruitful 2011, according to the President of the Georgetown Amateur Basketball Association (GABA), David Carto.
The GABA President, who is only into the second year of his administration, told Kaieteur Sport in an interview yesterday that getting clubs to set up proper structures with an Executive in place, was part of his immediate plan to reform the management of the sport.
However, Carto said that an unfortunate lull developed at the beginning of his tenure as he failed to get the clubs’ cooperation in that regard. He informed that the lethargy in getting clubs to form structures was followed with more stupor in getting clubs to officially register.
“One of the reasons I got involved in basketball is because I thought that I could’ve helped clubs restructure themselves. In meetings with the clubs, they agreed in principle that they would have formulated their structures,” Carto told this newspaper.
“Sponsors were saying that they give money to clubs, then at the end of the day, there is no form of accountability. So we felt that is one of the best ways to address that… getting clubs’ structure formed. Clubs agreed in principle but it never happened,” he continued.
The GABA President said that it was never a case where the association was not doing anything to push the sport forward. He informed that he felt that one of the best ways to do so was to build a solid premise for the clubs but the clubs did not adhere to the plan.
Carto related that immediately upon taking office, three committees were formed; those included a Fund-Raising Committee, Operations Committee and a Disciplinary Committee. On the subject of tournaments, he said the Operations Committee provided an immediate plan.
“The Operation Committee within a month of being elected had formulated a schedule that had a Pre-Season Knockout tournament as its first tournament. They’d also done a League schedule. It was Kester (Gomes) who was head of that committee,” Carto noted.
However, the issue of its affiliated clubs not being registered to the association was discovered as a second bugbear following the failed efforts to get clubs to form proper structures. He said those were the major issues that made it seem as though the GABA was not working.
“The problem that we had as of the second month of being elected there were only three clubs in Georgetown that were registered; two more joined around September. We were begging clubs to register; we kept telling clubs that it’s important that they register because we cannot start any of our tournaments with just three clubs,” Carto indicated.
“We kept begging them (clubs) and pressing them to get registered. It was a kind of a stalemate until we had another club registered making it six clubs now registered. We decided to start the knockout tournament with six teams,” the GABA head continued.
It was at this point late last year that the association decided to allow Pacesetters to play despite the fact that they were among the negligent clubs. However, the latitude of the GABA backfired when Pacesetters pulled its team from the tournament after qualifying for the semis.
The move from Pacesetters made it clear that they were one of the clubs intent on not extending an olive branch to the new association. Following the pulling of its club, Pacesetters led a coup it seemed, that was aimed at destabilising the GABA with a no-confidence motion. However, there could not have been any momentum with that move because the validity of the unregistered club would have obviously been questioned.
“Bobby came up with this no-confidence thing, but I called clubs and asked if they got a problem and if those problems were justifiable then we would step down. The six teams registered did not have a problem so that was the end of that matter for me,” Carto mentioned.
He stated that there are still unregistered clubs in Georgetown and now that they had managed to complete their knockout tournament, the GABA is moving to commence its 2012 League. I think I am trying as much as possible to get all the clubs, but we have decided that we will go ahead if by the end of this week we don’t get the other clubs,” the Georgetown sub-association President concluded.
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