The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

Bahamas Bodybuilding and Fitness Federation (BBFF) president Danny Sumner is reiterating a call he made many years ago for the establishment of a national lottery to help with the development of sports in the country.

Sumner, who served at the time as president of the Bahamas Government Departmental Basketball Association, said he remembered when the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture was first instituted by then Prime Minister Lynden Pindling with Kendal Nottage as the initial minister.

At the time, the government had allocated about $1 million dollars for the ministry and even then, Sumner said he didn’t feel it was sufficient to adequately supply all of the needs of the sporting bodies in the country.

“I am one of those who have always been pushing for some type of national lottery,” Sumner said. “The whole idea behind that is for government to facilitate sports programmes. But I think a lottery will also assist with a lot of the social development in the country, such as the Red Cross, Boys Scouts and other organisations that need funding.”

From his seat, Sumner said he knows fully well how there are 4-5 sporting bodies soliciting funding for their national events from the same companies at the same time. At the same time, the civic organisations are also trying to secure funding from the same companies.

“My point is that the funding that the government had allocated to the Ministry of Sports was relatively small, but with the economy not as vibrant as it was in the past, we don’t expect it to get any better to take care of all of the requests that we submitted to the ministry of sports,” Sumner said.

“So I think it’s an opportunity right now for something like a sports lottery to come into place. I travel the length and breadth of the Caribbean and in most of those countries, sports has become an integral part of their country. Countries like Barbados and Trinidad, most of their funding for sports comes from some type of a national lottery. Only in the Bahamas we don’t have any such thing in place.”

Not knocking the Church, who is agitating against the creation of any type of lottery or gambling system, Sumner said it’s a matter of generating more financial support for sporting organisations.

“It is something that needs to be organised properly,” Sumner said. “Once it is organised properly and is managed properly, I think we all can benefit greatly in sports in the country.”

Having watched the “Golden Knights” team of Chris ‘Fireman’ Brown, Demetrius Pinder, Michael Mathieu and Ramon Miller win the gold medal in the men’s 4 x 400 metre relay at the Olympic Games in London, England, in August, Sumner said there could be and should be more given to our athletes when they excel.

“We could be further than we are right now,” he said. “With proper funding for training and innovative ideas for sports and the civic groups, I think we can achieve a lot more than we have and are achieving right now.”

Like he did about 20 years ago, Sumner said he’s once again leading a campaign by the major sporting associations and federations to call for the establishment of a national sports lottery.

“The web shops have hired a lot of people and right now government is looking at ways to generate more revenue,” Sumner said. “Government is trying to do this without imposing more tax on the Bahamian people and the way to do that is to establish some type of national lottery.

“Right now, government is not getting anything out of the numbers houses because it’s illegal. So they might as well legalise it because it’s been going on for quite some time. They might as well legalise it because as the prime minister said, the money will be going towards sports, education and other civic organisations.”

Giving respect to the Church, Sumner said they have their role to play and he wants them to continue to play their role, but he wants to encourage more revenue generated to the advancement of sports in the country and so he’s advising persons to vote yes when the referendum is held on December 2.

“I am publicly endorsing it just as I did when the Sports Ministry was first instituted,” he said. “The Bahamas is a growing country and we are on the threshold of becoming a major sporting power in the region and we can only do that if we have more funding.”