First it was Austin ‘Jack’ Warner, on Wednesday, it was Chinese coach Cheng Jian Hua.
Warner might be Trinidadian and Jian Hua, Chinese, but when it comes to the lack of sporting facilities in Guyana, the two are speaking the same language.
There is only one thing wrong. Their words are falling on deaf ears.
Warner on a recent visit to Guyana bemoaned the lack of facilities for the nation’s footballers especially in a country with land and more to spare.
No one in the government or the Guyana Football Federation (GFF) seemed to have heard him for there was a deafening silence from those two august bodies.
One would have thought that government would have issued a response; stating that they had noted the FIFA vice-president’s comments and would look into the situation.
Or perhaps Mr. Colin Klass, GFF president for close to two decades, could have told the nation how much longer it would have to wait to finally get the FIFA training facility from FIFA’s Goal project but Klass, perhaps wisely, kept his mouth shut.
Ping Pong diplomacy
Jian Hua has been in this country for a relatively short period. But on Wednesday, in an interview with Stabroek Sport, he made an accurate assessment of some of the problems facing the sport.
According to Hua, though the local players are talented and have the ability to become world class players, the present environment was not conducive to any such development.
Showing no ping pong diplomacy, Hua was especially critical of the facilities for the sport, pointing out that only four tables were being used for the current daily sessions.
Hua’s comments are an indictment against those in charge of the sport especially the government, although the Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) is equally culpable. Whether Hua’s comments will be wasted on those tasked with the responsibility of providing the infrastructure for the sportsmen and women of Guyana to fulfil their undoubted potential, remains to be seen.
What is certain is that there is a lack of vision by those responsible for Hua’s visit, or perhaps, Hua’s visit is nothing more than a cheap political gimmick from a government which likes to play political games rather than get down to the serious business of proper governance.
The government, it seems, has not learnt from having previous chinese coach Zhou Ping here for two years.
Ping’s tenure was marked by his inability to get programmes off the ground because of the lack of training tables, balls, blades, rubbers etc. etc. etc.
Did those responsible for Hua’s visit have the foresight to have the coach bring along equipment (which is cheaper in China than probably anywhere else in the world) to assist him to carry out his training programmes? We think not.
Ping had complained about the lack of training balls to carry out a particular type of drill – called Multi-Ball Training – which entails the use of dozens of balls at a time.
The drill is designed to cut down on time wasting which happens when a player hits the ball off the table and the other player has to go to retrieve it.
It also increases stamina and speed by having players continuously hitting dozens of balls one at a time.
If this government was indeed serious about lifting the standard of the game here they would have known or could have requested from the GTTA, whether there were enough tables and equipment to make Hua’s stint here a meaningful one.
If there was not a satisfactory amount of tables and other equipment then the government could have sought to access these from China through the same bi-lateral agreement which brought the coach and his interpreter here so that maximum use could be made of Hua’s visit rather than have the much ballyhooed programme turn out to be just the usual scrubby training sessions at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall.
