​“So, who­ev­er knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is a sin.” (James 4:17)

​As we ap­proach Re­pub­lic Day to­mor­row, there is so much to be hap­py about, with great sport­ing mo­ments that have brought joy, hap­pi­ness, smiles, hugs, and cel­e­bra­tion.

​How­ev­er, to­day I want to ex­am­ine what is hap­pen­ing that may lead to these past suc­cess­es be­com­ing mere mem­o­ries—no longer short- or long-term pos­si­bil­i­ties to be re­peat­ed—if we fail to act while know­ing right from wrong.

The re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL), de­spite its ag­gra­vat­ing and un­con­ven­tion­al half-time show of an ex­ces­sive 50 min­utes (which was a mas­sive fail­ure and a crick­et­ing dis­ad­van­tage to the team bowl­ing sec­ond un­der de­layed dew con­di­tions), has shown se­nior fig­ures at the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers (TKR) that they need to get their act to­geth­er in terms of both per­son­nel and abil­i­ty.

​The oth­er teams in the re­gion are not wait­ing around ad­mir­ing TKR; in­stead, as the An­tigua & Bar­bu­da Fal­cons demon­strat­ed so bril­liant­ly, they are ap­ply­ing TKR method­ol­o­gy to win. That in­cludes wise­ly util­is­ing play­ers from Trinidad and To­ba­go to en­hance the com­po­si­tion of their team.

​For the record, the 2026 CPL-win­ning fran­chise had four Trinidad and To­ba­go play­ers in its start­ing XI: Evin Lewis, Amir Jan­goo, Jay­den Seales, and Joshua James. Al­so on the bench was an­oth­er T&T na­tion­al, An­der­son Phillip. Hope­ful­ly, the lessons learned from this “bit­ter pill” will be swal­lowed with care­ful thought and pre­cise plan­ning for 2027 by TKR, lead­ing to few­er omis­sions and more con­ces­sions.

Re­gard­ing foot­ball, giv­en the dif­fi­cult path pre­sent­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go in the up­com­ing Na­tions League—hav­ing to play three of four sched­uled match­es against 2026 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing teams in Haiti and Cu­raçao—it was in­cum­bent that coach Derek King be al­lowed prop­er prepa­ra­tion for the team.

​In­stead, a se­ries of self-in­flict­ed wounds were pre­sent­ed by what ap­pears to be a com­bi­na­tion of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA), the Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs, and the Sports Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (SporTT). These is­sues could and should have been thor­ough­ly ven­ti­lat­ed and ad­dressed long be­fore two weeks pri­or to team se­lec­tion. In this re­gard, I can ab­solve none of them; all must be held ac­count­able, though the SporTT board bears pri­ma­ry re­spon­si­bil­i­ty rather than the SporTT staff.

We must face the fact that while coach King has a strong team on pa­per, he now has the un­en­vi­able task of shap­ing the mind­set of play­ers who have had to act as ad­vo­cates and ne­go­tia­tors rather than pro­fes­sion­al ath­letes fo­cused on their per­for­mance. All sports de­mand clear minds for plan­ning and ex­e­cu­tion, from both play­ers and coach­ing staff. Hope­ful­ly, a lot of these lead­ing play­ers can quick­ly ad­just to the set­ting in front of them with full sat­is­fac­tion that this con­stant plight of non­pay­ment for ser­vices is re­solved.

​It is go­ing to be a tough task, and when you are told that in­di­vid­u­als with­in the TTFA, the Sports Min­istry, and SporTT have per­son­al agen­das, the fu­ture looks un­cer­tain. The prob­lem for me is that those in po­si­tions like my­self, are aware of where the doubts and ques­tions on abil­i­ty, care and re­li­a­bil­i­ty ex­ist and ap­pear too weak to take de­ci­sive ac­tion.

​This lack of ad­mis­sion - that omis­sions were made and many in pow­er­ful seats were aware but too busy seek­ing self-grat­i­fi­ca­tion is wrong and has to be cor­rect­ed soon­er rather than lat­er.

​Horse rac­ing is now at its low­est point in the his­to­ry of the sport lo­cal­ly. To­mor­row is Der­by Day in this coun­try, yet there are on­ly six races sched­uled with a to­tal of just 37 hors­es en­tered—the low­est turnout for a Der­by Day ever.

In fact, there are non-gam­bling races with on­ly four hors­es in two of the six races. This is not on­ly in­sane­ly crazy but reeks of im­pend­ing dis­as­ter and a pos­si­ble im­plo­sion. The fact is that there have been a lot of bro­ken promis­es made in horserac­ing, start­ing with the most crit­i­cal be­ing the – bro­ken word – of pol­i­tics, when the horse rac­ing fra­ter­ni­ty was promised a per­cent­age of the in­come from the Na­tion­al Lot­tery when it was re­moved from the ad­min­is­tra­tion and care of horse rac­ing.

​That de­ci­sion has se­vere­ly harmed horse rac­ing over the years, even as the legal­ly man­dat­ed Na­tion­al Lot­tery sys­tem evolved in­to a mul­ti­mil­lion-dol­lar in­dus­try (and I am speak­ing about the legal­ly man­dat­ed one). Sev­er­al past and present ad­min­is­tra­tions have sought to by­pass this dis­cus­sion—the "bro­ken promis­es" of those with sil­ver tongues. While they may es­cape ac­count­abil­i­ty in this world, it is al­most cer­tain that in an­oth­er place, they will not es­cape their dark deeds and sins of omis­sion.

At the mo­ment, with­out that right­eous sup­port of rel­e­vant de­ci­sion mak­ers with hon­esty in their hearts, there is no fu­ture in the sport, de­spite the best in­ten­tions of a few at the Bet­ting Levy Board and even the Ari­ma Race Club. This would mean more un­em­ploy­ment in a dif­fi­cult area – Cara­po- where per­sons now will have idle time, and it is un­fair to treat the men and women of horse rac­ing with­out any means to earn a le­gal liv­ing. We would be, as a so­ci­ety, wrong­ful­ly push­ing our peo­ple down and run­ning over them, as if they did not mat­ter. I hope that some­one with hu­man­i­ty ad­dress­es this with ac­tion and not talk.

So, on­ly three sports but loads of prob­lems, with lim­it­ed so­lu­tions un­less per­sons with the req­ui­site pow­er and in­flu­ence sin­cere­ly care enough. And I have not even touched on bas­ket­ball, net­ball, swim­ming, hock­ey, cy­cling, ten­nis, bad­minton, or ath­let­ics as yet.