By Neto Baptiste
Antigua and Barbuda’s National Olympic Committee (NOC) could soon have a place to call home.
This was revealed by the body’s president, EP Chet Greene, who said that, following talks with PASO (Pan American Sports Organisation) and other international partners, the local body is left with deciding whether it should refurbish an existing building or erect one of its own.
“The Gen Sec [Cliff Williams] and I, along with the minister of sports [Daryll Matthew], are due to make a tour of a particular government facility and the intention is to approach the government thereafter to seek permission to use that facility as the NOC home.
“We have had discussions on the margins of the just completed Olympic Games with the leadership of Pam Am Sports with respect to funding for that project and we are just now to find a place. It is either going to be a building to retrofit, or lands that we can build upon,” he said.
The news comes on the heels of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and just one year after Greene had reveled back in 2020 that funds designated for the erection of an NOC office here had been redirected, with the blessings of Pan Am Sports, towards the purchasing and laying of the new certified Mondo surface at the YASCO Sports Complex.
Greene, also the country’s foreign affairs minister, said the NOC has the full backing of its international partners.
“Our repurposing of those funds for the office for the benefiting of the track or the purchasing of the track, was a decision that gained the support of PASO, IOC and our local Olympic family so let’s get that out of the way for those who may still be questioning the decision.
“It had the blessings of those who matter in the membership of the NOC and the funders in IOC and PASO so we are able, having had their approval, … to go back to them to seek support for that project,” he said.
Greene assured that the NOC will continue to play a significant role in the development of the YASCO Sports Complex. The NOC head office is currently housed at the Sir Vivian Richards Ground.