Big money budget TTCB wants $31m to run cricket
Published on Jul 7, 2015, 8:40 pm AST
By Roger Seepersad
TTCB PRESIDENT: Azim Bassarath.
Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board (TTCB) president Azim Bassarath said that cricket is now the number one sport in T&T and feels they are not asking for too much when they submitted a budget of $31 million to the Sport Company earlier this week.
A TTCB media release yesterday stated that the Board, meeting in an executive retreat over the weekend in Couva, approved and submitted a budget of $31,351,275 to the Sport Company to cover their developmental programme for the current fiscal year.
And according to Bassarath, local cricket deserves every penny.
“We feel that cricket right now is the number one sport in the country and should be given more attention because of the work we have been doing and because we are regarded very highly as one of the best run sporting organisations in the Trinidad and Tobago,†Bassarath told the Express yesterday.
“In previous years the budget would have been $12 million but (the increase is) because of the amount of work we feel we have to do now, and because of the fact that our youth team did not do well last year and the previous year,†he explained.
“We feel that because of the starving of funds which we suffered over the past three years, that we have to focus a lot more on development and team preparation and you will see where we catered to spend over $2.1 million on team preparation for both the senior team and the youth teams because we feel it is important to prepare these teams properly,†Bassarath added.
The funds requested represent proposals for the upgrade of the TTCB's sprawling 17-acre training and administrative facility at Balmain in Couva, and the undertaking of several important projects to enhance the preparedness of its national teams, increase assistance to clubs, and provide specialist training for curators, umpires and scorers.
One of the biggest chunks of the budget targets the National Cricket Centre, which is wholly owned by the TTCB, with proposals to outfit it with a state-of-the art electronic scoreboard costing in the region of $2 million.
There is also a proposal for the laying of a sand-based outfield at the NCC, which is estimated to set the board back approximately $3 million, but will bring the venue on par with internationally accepted standards.
“Although we sent this budget, we don't really expect that we will get all of it, but if we get 75 per cent of that, we will be happy. We know if we get that money, a lot of work can be done for cricket in the country,†the TTCB boss explained.
“We must not forget that CPL was given a substantial amount of funding and we feel if we get half or even three-quarters of what CPL got, it will go a long way for the further development of T&T cricket,†he added.
The TTCB is also planning to allocate approximately $9 million in grants to clubs to help alleviate the burgeoning costs associated with club administration and community development which are intrinsically linked.
The TTCB also intends to improve its development model to meet the changing requirements of the game and has placed additional emphasis on this.
For preparation of the national teams under its purview, the TTCB has budgeted $2,371,250 for the Under-13, Under-15, Under-17, Under-19 and senior Red Force teams, to be supported by island-wide coaching programmes costing $750,000.
These initiatives involve 3,000 children instructed by 120 coaches.
Specialist coaching programmes are also listed for batting, bowling and fielding ($300,000) while the board's Cricket Academy, , has also been allocated $300,000 for the training of 20 elite cricketers.
In addition to the $120,000 for development seminars, the total budget for club development is $1,892,000 of which the TTCB will cough up $180,000 to be supplemented by $1,712,000, which will be raised from external sources.
