Editorial | PSOJ’s sports policy

The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica’s (PSOJ) proposal for public-private partnerships for building new facilities to help advance the island’s prowess in global athletics deserves full and urgent embrace all round.

But while the idea is implicit in the initiatives that the private sector body outlined in its statement this week, the PSOJ should explicitly pursue, and promote, the concept of sports as a public good. They should urge domestic sports bodies to transcend the old notions of themselves as private associations answerable only to their members, and become transparent institutions, accountable to all Jamaicans.

This suggests the need for a national conversation around the potential of sports in Jamaica’s social and economic development, what policies, programmes and tactics will be necessary to extract the greatest value from the enterprise, and contributions various stakeholders will have to make for the projects to be realised.

In that regard, and the given the context within which the PSOJ framed its idea, The Gleaner recommends to the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) – as we did in the aftermath of last year’s Paris Olympics – that it makes public its full analysis and assessment of Jamaica’s performance of the recently concluded World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, as well as the basis of its team selection and tactics for the games.

In Tokyo, Jamaica won 10 medals, the third largest haul by any nation: one gold, six silver and three bronze. In terms of medals, Jamaica did better than in Paris, when it won six medals, four in field events, which pointed to the island’s continued growth in an area of track and field athletics where it didn’t historically excel.

REINFORCED

Disappointments notwithstanding, Jamaica’s performance in Tokyo reinforced its place as a global athletics power, while the performances of emerging stars suggested a continued bright future.

It is against this backdrop that the PSOJ urged that Jamaica extract more than national pride from these achievements. “.... The success of our athletes is a (potentially) powerful driver of economic growth, boosting tourism, global visibility and international partnership,” the PSOJ said.

While the PSOJ urged firms to deepen their investments in athletics by providing sponsorships and funding training programmes, it also called for something deeper and more profound.

Said the PSOJ, an umbrella private sector body: “Private sector investment, coupled with suitable policies and incentives, can strengthen the infrastructure that sustains our athletes, ensuring that they can build viable careers and continue to compete at the highest level.

“We encourage government and business leaders alike to foster innovative partnerships that provide financing, world class facilities and sustainable pathways for athletics to thrive.”

In other words, in line with this newspaper long advocacy, the PSOJ wants a national partnership – a collaborative policy for sports, in much the same way as one is necessary for the national economy so as to lift Jamaica from its trap of low technology, low value-added, low productivity, low wage and low growth.

While The Gleaner doesn’t necessarily share that view, perhaps the government is not the one to aggressively pursue this project, for fear that skittish domestic sport bodies might not only resist, but elicit the support of their international associates to poison the initiative.

LEGITIMATE PLACE

To be clear, governments, including this one, without appropriating the responsibilities of national associations, have a legitimate place in engaging sporting bodies to be part of national projects of the type envisioned by the PSOJ.

Some sporting associations might not consistently receive huge amounts of money from national treasuries to fund ongoing operations. However, in Jamaica taxpayers’ support is ongoing, significant and visible in other ways, such as in maintaining national sport programmes: from financing education facilities that train coaches, to paying for them to coach in schools, maintaining facilities and periodically offering economic support to athletes who have made into the elite ranks.

It is not only via their pocketbooks that Jamaicans are deeply invested in their track and field athletes and other sports people. They become deeply emotionally invested, too.

In that regard, like West Indies cricket in the wider region, by tradition and history and public engagement, track and field athletics for Jamaica is, and ought to be seen as, a public good.

Any policy or sporting programme that starts with this appreciation of the place of sports in the national environment, understands the obligation of sporting bodies to the critical stakeholders – those at the centre of the enterprise, the players and the performers, and those, the public, who invest in, and draw from, their excellence.

Which is why the PSOJ’s call resonates loudly, and why, institutionally, it is well placed to lead the initiative towards transformation it proposed. Indeed, the PSOJ should start background dialogue now, nudging the sporting bodies and critical stakeholders in preparation for the national conversation on how Jamaica, in policy and management, perceives sports.