Benefits seen but COVID challenges lie ahead

As the global coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) continues to pause sports around the region, president of the Caribbean Basketball Confederation, Gylne Clarke, believes one of the benefits for his association arising from the crisis has been the ability to undertake financial savings.

Clarke said the CBC had not incurred expenditure as it related to travel, accommodations and meals because no basketball was being played within the region at the moment.

“This year we were able to save quite a bit because we would not have had the level of expenditure for meetings and different programs. The online training is a blessing because that way we don’t have to pay for travel, accommodations and meals for the instructors,” Clarke pointed out.

“Also since most of the instructors were able to remain home. They haven’t been asking for any remuneration for putting on the sessions. So, we have actually saved quite a bit of funds this year with our Speaking during a telephone interview with Barbados TODAY, Clarke said the challenge for next year will be in hosting matches as member countries had all been impacted by COVID-19 and had implemented various levels of health protocols.

With most sports around the world having restarted in bio-secure “bubbles”, Clarke said the task before regional basketball authorities would be funding such infrastructure.

“We are still impacted at this present time by the COVID. Some countries are at different stages of coping with the COVID,” he explained.

“I recently did a survey with some of the member countries. A lot of them are limited in their participation in any competitive activity because of different governmental restrictions. So, it continues to be a challenge going into 2021.

“At the FIBA Americas level, they just reintroduced basketball in one of the leagues. It was played in a bubble in Uruguay. The challenge in our region is going to be the level of funding required to host such competition in this region.

“Quite a few counties are restricted to travel and again that would continue to be a challenge.”

He added: “What we will have to do is work around. We are hoping to have a meeting with our executives to decide the way forward for 2021. Even our assembly coming up in March which we were scheduled to host in Aruba, we have made a decision that we are going to have that online.”

With hardly any basketball being played around the Caribbean region, Clarke expressed worry about the standard of competition once action resumed.

Noting that the more developed countries would be less impacted in this regard, Clarke said the longer the Caribbean continued without organised basketball, the greater the repercussions would be.

“Only the bigger countries like Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic can put on their tournaments within the bubble format. The surveys I did in a lot of the countries (Caribbean), competitive basketball did not play due to COVID, so Barbados is not unique in that situation,” he stressed.

“While individuals may be training and preparing themselves, I guess national federations would be limited as to the type of activity and the type of return to play based on governmental restrictions. Basketball is a sport where there is a lot of contact. I can see that being one of the few sets of sport that would be allowed to play.

“I suspect countries will allow persons to continue to train and maintain their fitness but in terms of national federations being able to bring the teams back into official organised practice, that is limited right now. I am pretty sure that would impact the quality of play.”

The number of well organised online workshop sessions done this year by the CBC  for referees, coaches and scorers have received Clarke’s stamp of approval.

He also indicated that come January next year, the CBC would be pushing ahead with a coaching program for Level One and Two coaches.

“We had excellent participation with the referee’s program that we’ve had in the region. I would say that the referee’s session that we put on were very successful,” he noted.

“What we are planning now is a programme for level one and two coaches. That will start in January and we will follow up with an administrative program where we will look at different areas like governance and strategic planning.

“This is to help build capacity within the national federations and help them to develop.

“I would say the response to online training has been extremely successful, so much so that through FIBA Americas and our subzone have been putting on many courses as well.

“So, that is why we have been restricted in the number of sessions we have put on directly. There are quite a bit of online training programs being undertaken by the different zones and subzones.”

He added: “At least if people can’t play, the best thing they can do is train and at least get some education. We have a lot of requests for different programs so we are trying to mitigate that against the different sections that our regional counterparts are putting on as well.

“We don’t want to put too much on the administrators and coaches because there are so many different programs and training courses being held online.”

morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb