Western Bureau:

A month ago, I got a telephone call from a concerned citizen inviting me to pay a visit to the Montego Bay Sports Complex, in Catherine Hall, which was in pristine state the last time I saw it in May, hosting final-round games in the 2011-12 Red Stripe National Premier League competition.

However, when I got to the J$1.4 billion facility, I was shocked, surprised and somewhat embarrassed. Initially, I felt as though my eyes were playing tricks on me because as I looked around, all I could see was overgrown weeds, knee-high shrubs and uncollected garbage. The facility looked like an abandoned building.

While I don't like to put a political spin on these things, I must confess that prior to the last local government elections when councillor Charles Sinclair led the St James Parish Council administration, and was in charge of the management of the complex, there was never a time that I had any reason to be ashamed of how it looked.

a scandalous state

In fact, when I reflect on some of the rich accolades that flow from no less a person than top track and field official Neville 'Teddy' McCook when the facility hosted the 2011 Carifta Games, I feel truly insulted by what I saw on my recent visit. There is absolutely no reason why such an important facility should be in such a scandalous state.

The sad truth is that while the Sinclair administration seems to have had an understanding of the importance of maintaining a sports facility, which they did by utilising a full-time staff for upkeep, the current administration clearly lacks vision, purpose and direction.

And, speaking of vision, I have learnt that a new board was recently installed to take over the management of the complex and based on the list of names shown to me, I think I can understand why such a fairly new facility was allowed to disintegrate into the kind of state I saw it. Except for former St James Football Association president George Evans, none of the other persons on the list are involved with sports in any recognisable way in the parish. It leads me to the conclusion that whoever named the board members clearly does not understand the importance of sports in nation building.

Surely, no board of this nature should have been constituted without representatives from the major sporting organisations in the parish of St James. As far as I am concerned, it goes without saying that a board for a sporting facility should have representatives from the football association, the cricket association and the track & field association.

In addition to the absence of the leaders of the sporting associations, it must be an insult to every well-thinking person in St James to a see a board with sporting ties not having persons like sporting icon Steve Bucknor, the vastly experienced Jerry Reid, Montego Bay United Football Club chairman Orville Powell among the other distinguished sporting personalities in the parish.

Personally, I would like to use this medium to call on Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, in her capacity as the minister of sports, to have a look at what is going on at the Montego Bay Sports Complex in terms of its upkeep and management structure, which leaves a lot to be desired.

While I know political parties have developed a reputation of trying to make activists relevant by putting them on boards, I would be terribly disappointed if an ardent lover of sports like Prime Minister Simpson Miller allowed the St James Parish Council to make a mockery of the complex the people of Montego Bay got from Venezuela.