Changes Sure to Come in Sport
We are at the start of yet another year. We are now in 2024. Those who are involved in sport, everywhere, are taking time to reflect on their fortunes over the past several months. This is seen as a necessary activity ahead of the new year. Indeed, many sports organisations would have undertaken their annual review some time ago and are well ahead of the planning for 2024, inclusive of completion of their budgetary exercises.
Here in St Vincent and the Grenadines, the National Olympic Committee (NOC) requested its affiliates, national sports associations, to submit their annual calendars and supporting budget several months ago and the final budget was presented to the General Council at a meeting on 18 November 2023. This is part of an ongoing effort aimed at encouraging national sports associations to be much more professional in their administration of sport.
The NOC itself, would have had to submit its own proposals to the international organisations to which it is affiliated, to meet crucial deadlines for projects intended for implementation in 2024, bearing in mind that 2024 is the year of the Summer Olympics in Paris, France.
Boxing
During the past year we would have witnessed the continued exercise of political power by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Nowhere has this been more evident than in the way in which the organisation has dealt with the sport of boxing.
The fact that the Olympic Games is still considered the world’s major sporting spectacle and commands tremendous revenue from the event, has somehow translated into the leadership perhaps seeing itself as all-powerful. In this regard, we have witnessed a growing tendency on the part of the leadership of the IOC to market itself as some sort of ‘global sport police service’.
In respect of boxing, the IOC took on the challenge of determining much of what happens in the sport by engaging in a sporting spat over the past several years, dictating the conditions under which the sport would remain on the sports programme of the Olympic Games.
In many respects, the IOC;’s leadership may well be accused to having determined the criteria in respect of who should lead international boxing if it is to stay on the Games’ programme. The course of action pursued by the IOC may well be unprecedented.
While the spat between the IOC and boxing continued, the former determined what it considered an appropriate body and mechanism to take responsibility for the sport of boxing at the Summer Olympics. One can only assume that since the Olympic Games belongs to the IOC with its all of 107 members.
Let’s be clear. The IOC makes it clear that “The IOC members, natural persons, are representatives of the IOC in their respective countries, and not their country’s delegate within the IOC. As stated in the Olympic Charter: “Members of the IOC represent and promote the interests of the IOC and of the Olympic Movement in their countries and in the organisations of the Olympic Movement in which they serve”.
The IOC members elect the future members who may or may not have anything to do with an existing NOC prior to being elected. The 107 members essentially determine what happens in the Olympic Movement, including what sports are on the Olympic Programme for any edition of the Games.
Boxing’s spat with the IOC has now led to a point where a new international federation has been formed, seeking to control the sport. It is not therefore surprising that some appear to see in this development, some interesting machinations.
The world watches on as the sport of boxing have become the latest plaything in the politics of international sport.
Football
The world’s most popular sport, football, has been confronted with numerous challenges. In April, an announcement was made of a proposed European Super League (ESL), backed by a group of wealthy individuals known as A22.
The announcement received much criticism and a court case between the ESL on the one hand and EUFA on the other. Recently, the European Court ruled in favour of the ESL, immediately re-opening the bruising debate that started with the initial announcement of the proposed league.
Following the decision of the European Court, the European Competitions Association (ECA) declared, “To be absolutely clear, the judgment in no way whatsoever supports or endorses any form of Super League project.
“Football is a social contract not a legal contract – all the recognised stakeholders of European and world football – spanning confederations, federations, clubs, leagues, players and fans – stand more united than ever against the attempts by a few individuals pursing personal agendas to undermine the very foundations and basic principles of European football.”
From the likes of things, it appears that the battle will continue for a long time to come, especially since European clubs are essentially community based, regardless of their ownership.
John Duerden, writing for Aljazeera, on 8 June, highlighted the then pending change in Saudi Arabian football, where there has been an ownership shift to the Public Investment Fund (PIF) that “signalled the start of a process to privatise clubs which have historically been under the control of the Ministry of Sports and relied on the state for financial support.”
Duerden noted that “According to the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the process aims to encourage the sport’s growth by attracting further investment, including by eventually enabling private sector involvement in clubs.
“The plan centres around three main areas: Create an appealing investment environment; improve the governance of the clubs in order for them to become more professional and financially sustainable; and boost their competitiveness by upgrading their infrastructure, SPA said.”
It has been stated that “Saudi Arabia wants to generate inward investment funds … from US private equity investment or investment from elsewhere in the world – and to make the clubs attractive they need to transform them to become more viable commercial propositions.”
Given the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s comments that should his investment in sport yield 1% increase in the country’s GDP it would be money well spent, one can expect significant changes in the sport.
Cricket
The sport of cricket, played one before in the Summer Olympics, will feature yet again at the Games in Los Angeles, California, in 2028. The news has delighted cricketing nations around the world.
The news of cricket’s re-entry in the Olympic Games has not yet met with the kind of enthusiasm that some of us would have expected from the sport’s adoring fans across the Caribbean. One of the reasons for this must be the fact that at the Olympics national representative teams are the ones engaged in competition., There is no place for regional teams.
The foregoing therefore means that a West Indies team is ineligible to participate in the Olympic Games. Instead, individual Caribbean nations will field their respective teams and are compelled to participate in Olympic Cricket Qualifiers as established by the International Cricket Council and approved by the IOC.
Some cricket administrators and fans may recall that when cricket was on the sport programme for the Commonwealth Games in 1998 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Antigua and Barbuda and Barbados, participated. When next the sport featured at the Commonwealth Games, it was in Birmingham, UK, last year, when Women’s T20 competition was featured. Barbados was the lone qualifying team from the Caribbean. The team’s selection was then based on the country’s position on the ICC’s T20 Rankings.
Over the next several months the ICC would determine the qualifying system it would put in place for all cricketing nations whose countries have NOCs.
Caribbean national cricket teams are not usually engaged in competition at the international level against other cricketing nations. This is a major hurdle that Caribbean teams will have to overcome, and they have four years in which to do so; not a lot of time.
Importantly, Cricket West Indies (CWI) the regional governing body for cricket in the ICC, would need to immediately commence work on allowing for the engagement of national representative teams to experience the higher level of competition in preparation for the Olympics of 2028. This could be a major game-changer for the sport in the Caribbean. There would be monumental challenges to overcome if any Caribbean team is to qualify for the Games. We can also expect consideration being given to inclusion of cricket in the Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games in 2026 in Dominican Republic and the Pan American Games in Colombia in 2027.
Netball
Netball made its first appearance at the CAC Games in San Salvador, El Salvador, in July, earlier this year. Unfortunately, the response from the very Caribbean countries that had supported Americas Netball’s appeal for inclusion in the Games, did not participate.
Having been included netball in the CAC Games, the next edition of which is scheduled for 2026, Americas Netball is now seeking the sport’s inclusion in the Pan American Games in 2027.
As has happened with Beach Volleyball, Rugby 7s, and Basketball’s 3 x 3, netball’s ‘Fast Five’ is the shorter, faster and generally more appealing version that the IOC may just find sufficiently appealing to young people to justify taking a serious look at its inclusion in the Summer Olympics in the future.
Netball, however, must do much more work at building the sport, globally, and engage in much more aggressive marketing, if it is to win favour at different continental multisport Games and ultimately, at the Olympics.
Caribbean nations are already playing as individual countries at regional, continental and international levels. This makes it much easier for national representative teams to participate in qualifying competitions ahead of multisport Games in which the sport in included, thereby making for the generation of. Significant enthusiasm amongst fans and supporters around the region and in the Diaspora.
