Grange: We did our best to give support to the Tallawahs
Published:Saturday | January 6, 2024 | 12:09 AMOrane Buchanan/Staff Reporter
MINISTER of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport Olivia Grange said on Thursday that the Government was not at fault for the exit of former local Caribbean Premier League franchise Jamaica Tallawahs. Minister Grange stated that the Government did their best to provide support for the team throughout the years.
“We did our best to give support to the Tallawahs,” Grange said. “The Tallawahs bear our country’s name but are not a national team and are therefore not covered in the yearly allocations to the Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA). However, we had sought to provide special support to the Tallawahs at the level that our funds will permit.”
In an article headlined ‘Antigua seems to be in a better position’ published in Wednesday’s Gleaner, former Chief Executive Officer of the Jamaica Tallawahs, Jeff Miller, stated that due to the lack of home games for the team it became unsustainable to keep the franchise in the country which had a domino effect causing the franchise to bleed financially.
“Unfortunately, the franchise cannot be sustained in Jamaica. We cannot have a franchise where we don’t have home games. When you don’t have home games, you’re losing ticket sales, you’re losing merchandising, you’re losing concession, you’re losing sponsors,” Miller had stated.
TALLAWAH’S FUNDING
In reply Minister Grange shared that the amount of funding the Tallawahs needed to operate would have required the Government to slash funding from the other sporting bodies and those sports, including football, netball, track and field, have been asking for additional funding.
“It is estimated that the Tallawahs required US$1 million each year or more than J$150 million. In order to give them more, we would have had to cut funding to the more than 40 national sports federations such as football, netball, track and field who depend on Government to run their programmes and have been requesting additional sums which we are challenged to provide,” she stated.
While speaking at the handover of cricket kits to the JCA on Thursday at the Indian High Commission, Minister Grange shared that the latest initiative between Jamaica and India was a sign of greater things to come as it not only showed that the Government cares about the sport but also wants to help with nurturing young cricketing talent.
“The handover of the kits is one of the initiatives on which the high commissioner and I have been working together as representatives of our respective governments in the interest of cricket. We are also discussing a major project about which I believe we will soon be in a position to update our respective stakeholders. Also, the Jamaica Cricket Association receives more funding each year from the Sports Development Foundation than all other national federations, except football and track and field,” she explained.