Harriette says a UPP Administration will focus on both upgrading playing facilities and teaching sports management

The United Progressive Party (UPP) plans to focus on building greater capacity in sports management and to do so by offering more training, scholarship programmes, and opportunities in this field once it is elected to office.

Of late, critics say, not enough emphasis has been placed on developing sports and players in Antigua and Barbuda.

This has prompted a cricket icon, Sir Andy Roberts, to criticize the state of the local cricket pitches.  “We are not up to par with the rest of the world regarding the science involved in pitch preparation,” he said recently.

Tevaughn “Peter Redz” Harriett, a national football star, says this is a shame, and he points to the dilapidated state of the Antigua Recreation Grounds (ARG).

Harriett, the UPP Candidate for St. Peter, says this absence of maintenance is not unique to the ARG but spread throughout the country’s other sports facilities.

He says the Ministry of Education should consider making sports management a part of the school’s curriculum.  This would expose the youth to the business side of sports and immerse them in the competitiveness of the sporting world.

Harriett promises that the UPP will establish a commission that will look into upgrading and enhancing the sporting grounds across the islands.