Understaffed SDF needs help – Wilks
Published:Thursday | August 10, 2023 | 12:12 AMLivingston Scott/Gleaner Writer
AFTER NINE years as Sports Development Foundation (SDF), General Manager, Denzil Wilks left the organisation to take up the position of manager of athletic development and training at the University of the West Indies recently.
The former SDF chief said he left the Government’s sports funding institution in as good a state as he found it.
However, he said the organisation is woefully understaffed and that the powers that be need to address this issue if the SDF is to serve the nation to its full capability.
“I would have loved to see the Sports Development Foundation staffed appropriately. That is a massive failure for me. The Sports Development Foundation is significantly understaffed. It covers the entire island with only 14 members of staff,” he told The Gleaner at a Rotary Club of St Andrew lunch meeting on Tuesday.
He pointed out that persons in their capacities at the SDF have to multitask in order to meet demands, and he believes that there are other areas such as research that require a full staff complement of its own.
“It requires persons to really come on board and be committed to ensuring that projects are completed because even while we are working, we are researching.
“It (SDF) needs a research department, and it needs to be strengthened in terms of its project execution because those persons in the project department are stretched to the limit.
“So I would love to see a properly staffed Sports Development Foundation so they can really get the job done in taking sports where it really can go,” he insisted.
He said there were many weaknesses in the local sporting bodies and believes that a national sporting council that includes all national associations is urgently needed.
He also argued that sports has become a critical part of the social and economic fabric of the nation and that there must be serious investment and a collaborative approach, and for this purpose, he believes a national sports council would also be ideal.
NO COORDINATION
“Sports is touching everywhere. Sports is touching tourism. It is being used for intervention in communities to try to stem the tide of crime.
“Sports is being used in so many different ways, but there is no coordination. So I have suggested the reinvigoration of the national sporting council to bring together various aspects of society that have to do with sport.
“So when a particular sport is being hosted and when certain sporting events are to take place, there is that coordination rather than an accident between the various stakeholders,” he reasoned
“So collaboration is absolutely critical. I encourage them to form a lobby body rather than playing crab in the barrel and trying to get as much for yourself.
“So come together and lobby because we are way below what is really required in terms of sporting investments, and only investment will bring the monetisation (of sports) that we speak about,” he commented.
As athletic development and training manager at the UWI, Wilks will oversee the maintenance and upgrading of the UWI Bowl and making it a viable facility.
“I will have a major responsibility for the UWI bowl. It is a brand sporting facility. It is where you find the Usain Bolt track and the Captain Horace Burrell Centre of Excellence for the JFF.
“It has three football fields, cricket field, tennis facility, netball, basketball, and volleyball facilities, a gymnasium and swimming pool. So many things take place there and very little people know about them. But the aim is to monetise the Bowl and make it a centre of excellence,” he said.