Oral Tracey | Cutting our cloth accordingly

The idea of Jamaica hosting more international sporting events has been floated in the public domain again over the last few months. Subsequent news that the Bahamas government was no longer interested in hosting the IAAF World Relays, due again in 2019, appeared to present the perfect opportunity for Jamaica to quench this peculiar thirst. Obviously, the necessary contacts were made, with the bid subsequently falling apart substantively because the Jamaican Government was finding it difficult, if not impossible, to come up with the US$6 million (over $J800 million) needed primarily to upgrade the National Stadium facility to the acceptable standard to host the event.

News also trickled out that the Jamaica Football Federation had been in dialogue with the regional governing body Concacaf as it relates to Jamaica hosting the opening game of the 2019 Gold Cup. Those ambitions also evaporated with the reality that the stadium also falls short of the standard required to host an event of that magnitude.

The immediate and emotional response is that the Government needs to and must find the resources to do the necessary upgrade of the stadium facility so that we can live our dream of hosting these and other big international events.

NO BENEFIT

Emotions, egos, and simply feeling good aside, pragmatism should dictate that we reconcile the costs versus the benefits of splashing out this kind of money in a nation with such woefully limited resources. How would it benefit Jamaica in the short, medium, and long term to spend approximately $1 billion to host events that based on history, would most likely not be profitable? The Bahamian government ditched the World Relays because the venture proved unprofitable. What evidence is there that Jamaica can turn that stark reality around with our comparatively soft economy?

Similar thinking should apply to the Gold Cup proposal. In observing the pattern of behaviour of Jamaican football fans, it is clear that we are "fickle wagonists" estranged from a real football culture, as evidenced by the national senior Reggae Boyz returning to the National Stadium for the first time in many moons for the first game of the Concacaf Nations League with roughly over 1,000 fans in attendance. What is there to suggest that a Gold Cup game, not necessarily involving Jamaica, would bring out all the needed "wagonists" to make this a worthwhile venture?

The National Stadium, while being far from perfect, is functional as it is. In terms of prioritising, the spending of close to $1 billion of scarce resources primarily to satisfy the IAAF and Concacaf absolutely would not be the best option right now. A better and more visionary move would be the laying of that much-talked-about and needed synthetic running track in central Jamaica, a region that is statistically proven to be the most fertile ground of Jamaica's athletics, which is by far the nation's most successful sport internationally. It is nothing short of a national disgrace that there is no modern facility in that entire geographical region.

Answering the desperate calls from the football fraternity to bring at least a few football surfaces up to an international standard also seems a more urgent and important investment than breaking the bank to appease a few international bodies in the pursuit of ventures that are likely to leave the Jamaican people and the Jamaican Government deeper in the red. Laying the synthetic track and upgrading a few football surfaces would probably cost US$1 million or US$2 million, a mere fraction of the US$6 million we are set to throw down the drain in order to beat our chests.

Based on all the information available, it is obvious that Jamaica, as a nation, simply cannot afford to host some of these events we are so desperately craving. We have hospitals, roads, and schools to repair and maintain, plus hundreds of thousands of poor Jamaicans to care for. We absolutely must effectively prioritise by first understanding and accepting what we can and cannot afford.