When it comes to our own stories, we obviously don't mind if they are told, misrepresented, misinterpreted or manipulated by others. In fact, given the way things are going, owners of media who see the bottom line and nothing else would be well advised—assuming they haven't done it already in some instances—to scrap their sports departments altogether.
Why should you have to pay for staff or freelancers, especially in this era of the internet and social networks, when all information, whether local, regional or international, can be accessed via a laptop that is loaded with all the latest software and can therefore download video, audio and text as required?
Makes perfect business sense to me, for it eliminates having to cope with the assorted logistical, managerial, emotional and financial headaches associated with at least one segment of the media workforce. Of course such a strategy will kill off whatever local talent there is and eliminate the prospects of those who may actually have aspired to a career in sports journalism.
But privately-owned (meaning the vast majority in our case) media houses are business entities, and if there is no significant, quantifiable cost attached to an absence of quality local reporting and analysis, if there is no clamour for a Trinidad and Tobago perspective when national teams perform at major competitions abroad, then what's the point of persisting with a superfluous entity?
Last evening at the Antigua Recreation Ground in St John's, Trinidad and Tobago took on Cuba in the final of the Caribbean Football Union's Caribbean Cup competition. This is our number one sport. This is a team that was almost eliminated before the qualifiers two months ago because of the Football Federation's financial woes and the refusal, up to that point, of the Ministry of Sport to provide funding. They were without any established foreign-based talent and lost to hosts Antigua/Barbuda in the group stage last week, a result that seemed to have ended their chances of advancing to the semi-finals.
However victory over the Dominican Republic in their final preliminary fixture, combined with Haiti's defeat of the home nation, lifted the side led by goalkeeper Jan-Michael Williams into the last four and earned them automatic qualification for the CONCACAF Gold Cup next July in the United States. Williams, whose fiancée was the victim of a vicious robbery attack last January, has been inspirational as a leader and a saviour between the uprights. His penalty save against Martinique on Friday took the red, white and black into the final in a shootout after they were minutes away from defeat in normal time.
This national team, the first to reach a Caribbean Cup final for more than 11 years, has fought, scrambled, scraped and been fortunate enough to get the assistance of others to get to last night's decider with the Cubans. Unusually, they have two head coaches. One, Jamaal Shabazz, was one of 114 Jamaat al Muslimeen members who attempted to violently overthrow the government of the country in an attempted coup that started on the evening of July 27, 1990.
Only last year he coached Guyana to victory over Trinidad and Tobago and advancement to the semi-final round of CONCACAF qualifying for the Brazil 2014 World Cup at the expense of the team from the land of his birth. Many maintain that his involvement in the acts of over 22 years ago must never be forgiven and it is utterly reprehensible that he is where he is now.
His co-head coach, Hutson Charles, was a fixture in the T&T midfield at the time of the coup attempt, celebrated for his goal in Honduras that took the country into the final round of World Cup qualification for Italia '90 and scorer of the late equaliser against the United States in California at the start of that final round which ignited the interest, the fervour and the passion that engulfed the nation as the "Strike Squad" came within an agonising point of going to the World Cup finals.
And the stories just keep coming from this single squad and this single event. Stories that inform and inspire, aggravate and may even deflate. Stories that should be told by our own who can put it all into a context that explains where we are as a football nation or even as a nation, period.
But we're not interested in that, assuming we're interested at all. So Ian Prescott of this publication has been all by his lonesome in Antigua covering the event. While the radio commentators in Antigua, Colin James and company, are trying their best, their knowledge of the non-Antiguan players is limited to non-existent, so you're basically just listening for the scoreline, which often is very long in coming.
And, of course, there's no "live" television coverage. Yes, you could have seen Corinthians of Brazil defeating Chelsea of England as it happened yesterday morning (our time) in Yokohama in the final of a Club World Cup that no-one except FIFA is interested in, but Trinidad and Tobago versus Cuba in the regional football final 90 minutes' flying time away in Antigua is a bridge too far to cross.
This would be outrageous except that no-one, certainly no-one of any real influence, is outraged. Not even the flag-wavers, the bandwaggonists and attention-seekers who parade and proclaim their Trininess are saying anything about it. So don't get vex now. It's too late.
You, like me, like it so.