Too late to be a sportsman?

By Paula-Anne Moore
| Tue, May 29, 2012 - 12:01 AM

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We are currently in the middle of the youth football tournament season; both the Barbados Football Association (BFA) and the BICO Inter-School Primary tournaments are in full swing.

Over the past four years that my first born (now 11 years old) has played in these tournaments. And it has become all too apparent how gunshots have become background music at the adult football games, and chairs are mistaken by our basketball players as essential equipment.

The behaviour by certain coaches, supporters and parents at some of these tournaments can be appalling: the cursing, flagrant lack of respect for rules (for example, encroaching on the field when a match is being played), [and] disrespect of referees.

Sometimes one can hear supporters encouraging players to injure their opponents! You haven’t lived until you have “enjoyed” the spectacle of two mothers (their sons on the same team, mind you) cursing and fighting during a game, because one mother said something to the other’s son.

And we ask how de yute get so.

Win by any means necessary is the mantra. Intimidate the referee raucously and as vociferously.

Is the BFA powerless to control this behaviour? Do we give up and say: “This is the culture of football . . . . The international players do it, so it’s okay?”