Sports organizations are in deep crisis

May 24, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Sport is on the decline in Guyana. Many sporting disciplines are contracting and the public support for sport is dwindling.
This may seem to be a paradox given Guyana‘s recent successes in youth and senior cricket, table tennis, the hosting of the Pan American Hockey Championships in Guyana last year and the achievements of Guyanese athletes at the Carifta and Commonwealth Games.
These successes conceal a deep malaise that is affecting sports organizations in the country. Sporting organizations from chess to cricket are in deep crises, and the situation is not going to improve by the government spending millions of dollars keeping a sports bureaucracy afloat rather than on sport itself.
Sport is now a multibillion-dollar global industry. The organization of local sport has not caught up either – in terms of organization of financing – with the rest of the world. This is why the West Indies Cricket team is at the bottom of the world cricketing ladder. It is there because Cricket West Indies (CWI) is outclassed financially by the rest of the world and this is reflected in the development programmes of CWI and its affiliates.
Clubs in Guyana are in crises. They are not financially feasible. They are going under. Their facilities are rundown and even the better managed ones are struggling to stay in the red.
Clubs and sporting associations are struggling to attract sponsorship for major competitions. There was a time, for example, when the major tobacco company used to sponsor at least three of the top club championships in the country. This is not happening anymore, and despite there being many more businesses, sponsorship has dried up for many events. As a result, athletes are underprepared for major international engagements.
The athletes themselves need sponsorship. This too represents a major hurdle for most athletes.
So why it is that sponsorship has dried up? It has dried up because the club structures have become fossilized. The clubs are no longer attracting the persons who have the financial influence as they did in the past. There are far too many free-riders around.
If you wish to gauge the effect of this, just look at when some sporting associations hold an event. There are more persons benefitting from complimentary passes than paid spectators. Everybody wants a free ticket. This is part of the problem that has led to the demise of clubs.
The second problem – and this is the source of the predicament – is the total lack of accountability of some clubs. All clubs are supposed to be registered under the Friendly Societies Act. The Act demands that audited statement of accounts be provided, but many clubs, including some of the more successful ones, are in default of financial accountability.
They keep grand events, but audited financial statements are not provided. And this is one of the main reasons why partnerships between clubs and businesses are so lacking.
Businesses are going to be willing to put their money behind a major event organized by an association, but they are hesitant in associating with clubs which are not accountable or who are headed by controversial personalities.
The government should keep its claws out of sport management, but it should establish a strong regulatory framework for sporting organizations, especially in relation to the holding of elections and the presentation of annual audited statements.
The government, unfortunately taking its lead from the PPPC, seems to be approaching this issue in a piecemeal fashion. It is determined to address specific controversies in particular sporting associations.
What it needs to do is to improve the Friendly Societies Act to ensure that all clubs which solicit money in public for their activities are registered; are required to keep regular elections and also to present audited financial statements by bona fide auditors.
The effect of these simple steps will be revolutionary. Once government presses the clubs and associations to clean up their act, it will find that more and more businesses will want to partner with clubs and associations, and this will improve the overall health of these bodies.
Clubs can become profitable again. Some persons still make their living off of involvement in sport. Once clubs improve their accountability, more respected persons will want to involve themselves. Many decent persons keep their distance from club management because of the charlatans which populate some of these clubs.
But once the clubs remain mired in the present morass, things will continue to go downhill, both for the clubs and sport in general.

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