Editorial | Discordant JAAA

Christopher Samuda, the boss of the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA), has crossed the first hurdle. He has shown empathy for the Jamaican athletes who are decamping to Türkiye to improve their economic prospects.

Mr Samuda, however, must now do more.

He should use the important platform he occupies, and the considerable influence he possesses, to begin a long overdue conversation on the management of sports in Jamaica, with significant emphasis on the welfare of athletes and the transparency, or lack thereof, with which the island’s sporting bodies, including his own, conduct their business.

Mr Samuda might perhaps begin this process by suggesting to his fellow sports administrator, Garth Gayle, the president of the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA), the need for a change in the tone of his response to the news that up to four Jamaican athletes, including two medallists from the Paris Olympics – Roje Stona and Rajindra Campbell – are changing allegiance to Türkiye.

Less hubris and casting of blame would help. Mr Gayle should try for greater empathy.

It was confirmed last week that Stona, who won the gold medal for the discus throw at the Paris Games, and Campbell, who gained the silver for shot put, will become Turkish citizens and perform for that country after World Athletics’ qualifying period. Apparently, they will receive US$500,000 signing bonuses from the Turkish sports authorities, plus monthly stipends and incentive payments for performances at major games.

It has since been suggested that Stona and Campbell are being joined in the move to Türkiye by Wayne Pinnock, the silver medallist in the long jump in Paris, and Jaydon Hibbert, the world record holder in the triple jump for under-20 athletes.

SHADOWY GROUP

There, of course, will be more than a tinge of national regret over these developments, which will hurt Jamaica’s recent strong growth in field athletics. The country has long been a global power in the sprints.

However, this newspaper appreciates Mr Samuda’s pragmatic approach to the matter. He said: “I am very disappointed that our gold and bronze medallists could not get the financial support they deserve. We cannot deny them the right to make decisions based on their circumstances.

“They have daily responsibilities and the sporting life is short. We must understand their choice.”

In contrast, the JAAA’s Mr Gayle’s apparent first instinct was to lash out at agents and coaches (apparently those associated with the departing athletes) who, he suggested, were clandestine in their approach. Mr Gayle also appeared to believe that this shadowy group was deliberately undermining the island’s field athletics programme.

“... Our sport is being handcuffed by a particular group of stakeholders,” Mr Gayle said on Monday.

Any empathy or sympathy that either Mr Gayle or his executives had for the athletes who have made what we assume to be wrenching decisions to head for Türkiye, appeared to be, at most, fleeting. They soon moved on to Jamaica’s depth of young, talented performers in the wings, some of whom would have space to emerge.

OPPORTUNITY FOR FRANK, ROBUST DEBATE

The Gleaner, of course, doubts there is some deliberate and diabolic plot by malign forces to destroy Jamaica’s track and field athletics. And whether that is the case, the response ought not to be merely lashing out and to suggest that Jamaica – its government and sporting bodies – has no agency in the matter.

Jamaica may not be able to match the offerings of countries that seek to ‘poach’ its elite athletes, but it can make the premium they have to pay for success higher. As this newspaper previously suggested, Jamaican sporting and marketing institutions can be more creative in leveraging the economic value, internationally, of the country’s elite athletes. And not only when they perform at global games.

First though, sporting organisations and related institutions must, at their core mission, be athletes-centric. They do not exist for the power and glory of their executives and/or policymaking bureaucrats.

Equally, the administrative bodies for sports, such as the JOA and the JAAA – their articles of association and relationships with international bodies notwithstanding – are not, in the strict sense they now interpret themselves to be, private associations, with little public accountability.

Jamaicans see their elite athletes as national assets in whom they make deep emotional investments. So, in their management and regulation of sports, these associations act as proxies of sorts for the wider public, to whom they owe an obligation of accountability and transparency. Which they rarely fulfil.

The public also has a further stake in the management and operation of the sports/athletics ecosystem. For, as taxpayers, they help to fund some of the underlying basics that make Jamaica’s participation in global sports possible.

The current recruitments by Türkiye provide an opportunity for a frank, robust debate on Jamaica’s place as a leader in global athletics, and whether the systems that got the country there are capable of keeping it at the top. Reforms are necessary.

Indeed, institutions tend to be most vulnerable when they are complacent.