By Neto Baptiste
Minister of Sports Daryll Matthew said he intends to meet with the hierarchy of the Antigua and Barbuda Athletics Association (ABAA) in an attempt to get a better understanding of what led to the recent debacle surrounding the non-registration of four athletes for the World Athletics Under-20 Championships later this month.
“It is something that we certainly will be engaging the athletics association authorities about. It is heartbreaking and devastating that having done the hard work, having qualified because these weren’t solidarity [wildcard] spots, these were athletes who qualified to attend these games. [So] due to what seems to have been an administrative blunder, these athletes are now denied the opportunity to go and represent their country, represent their families and represent themselves, and so it is a conversation that will be had,” he said.
Observer media broke the news last week that the association had missed both the original and the extended deadline set by World Athletics to have the athletes registered for the August 27-31 meet in Lima, Peru. To date, there has been no explanation from the association as to how the body could have made such an error while president Everton Cornelius has refused to comment.
Matthew, however, reminded that the Ministry has no jurisdiction in the matter but should be entitled to an explanation.
“I would just like the public to have a clear understanding though, that the Ministry of Sports is not the governing body for national associations. So, while we support a lot of the national associations financially, we’re not their governing body; their governing body is the National Olympic Committee.
“[However], given the small society that we have and the impacts that government can have on sporting development and the financial investments that we make in sports, I believe that it is a conversation worth having with them,” he said.
Revealing that he had just recently returned to Antigua, Matthew said he was only made aware of the development after seeing the Observer article online. He said the ministry will seek to forge a close bond with associations where the relaying of information is concerned.
“Most of the times, we only get information that national teams are travelling when request for funding comes to the ministry for support, so because the request may come to purchase tickets or accommodations then we would have an idea that these teams are travelling on a particular date. Sometimes when teams travel we don’t even know when they are returning because the associations do not contact us and it’s a gap we’ve been trying to bridge and something we’ve been trying to encourage them to do,” he said.
“Let us know when you’re travelling [because] an athlete can have an incident abroad where you need the intervention of the government. It is important that we know when national teams are traveling to represent Antigua and Barbuda and not only important when financial report is required,” the minister added.
