What is our Policy concerning Sports in Guyana

Jun 22, 2023 Sports

By Samuel Whyte

Kaieteur Sports – As I make this contribution on Sports in Guyana, I will take the time in highlighting a few things and ask the question about our Sports Policy.

It is time the government presents a comprehensive Sports Policy, so that Guyanese can be guided on the way forward.

I can remember a few years ago the debate was hot concerning a policy position on Sports. That has since died down and things have since returned to square one. Are we going to produce a policy or remain reactive and do patch work as the case seems to be now.

As I said before, Guyana is now in the big league and money is no longer a problem.

It is noticed that Guyana is now selecting large contingents for overseas engagements in the sporting arena. Congratulations to those selected although some may raise eyebrows.

What are our parameters for success? Is it winning or improvements? I hope it’s not just participation. Those days should be long gone. We need to get returns for our investments.

As I said before, in days gone by most of our athletes were home grown or based and sporting activities were well publicized.

As it is now, most of our athletes are imported from overseas whilst some are overseas based. The representatives are imported from oversees, they don’t even know the country they perform for and that’s it.

How do our home grown and based athletes benefit from that? How are we improving the athletes at home so that they can do better and be selected for scholarships and other overseas engagements?

Whilst I am not just criticizing the associations for getting the best athletes available, it is laziness for not doing comprehensive work at home to better the sports. What does these organizations and the Government do throughout the year?

The Guyana Football Federation (GFF) is a guilty culprit. Football as with many other sports can take an entire article, but this is a short clip.

Football is hardly played in Guyana now; Hardly any competitions in various Sub Associations.

Guyana might be the only team in South America that doesn’t utilized our Amerindian brothers in the National Football teams. Most National tournaments, especially schools competitions, teams made up of our Amerindian brothers does exceptionally well, winning on many occasions, yet after all those decades the GFF makes no effort to utilize those gifted soles.

DIGICEL, sponsored most of those tournaments, Digicel, I noticed is now back.

Squash and Badminton needs to expand. Boxing has shrink badly. Berbice had five or more boxing gyms. Linden was once a power house. There was also the Joint Services.

Almost all the sports have shrunk, Long Tennis, Basketball, Hockey, volleyball etc.

We say we are doing well at cricket by winning a number of senior titles consecutively. But how many makes the West Indies team. Remember when we had five and sometimes more players in the West Indies team including successive captains and a number of top guns on standby.

I stop there for now.

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contribution, Guyana, policy, question, Samuel Whyte

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