President of the National Association of Athletic Administration Ephraim Serrette has publicly criticised the actions of the Memphis Athletic Club after it staged an unauthorised training session and subsequent protest at the Hasely Crawford Stadium on Thursday evening. The club, which was preparing for this weekend’s Carifta Trials at the same venue, defied a notice released by the Sport Company of T&T in January stating that the facility would be unavailable for use until March 3. According to reports, members of the club, including head coach and Olympic medallist Edwin Skinner, entered the venue without permission and began training with their junior athletes. When asked by security to leave the premises at 6 pm, they refused and mounted a protest. Speaking during a press conference at the Stadium’s VIP Lounge yesterday, Serrette said he was disappointed by the conduct of the club. “Rules are rules... You can’t just come into the arena without authority... I sympathise with the athletes, but they knew in advance that the stadium would not be available until March 3. Dialogue needs to take place and if we do that we’ll be in a much better state.” The Sport Company’s Senior Manager of Corporate Communications Adrian Raymond added that the situation could have been handled more professionally.
“To go the route that they did and to escalate the situation was just very unfortunate and very irresponsible, particularly since they were dealing with athletes who are minors... They were just simply asked to leave but they chose to disregard the requests of stadium officials and security,” he said. “Mr Skinner felt that he had a fundamental right to be there no matter what, regardless of if we’re the guardians and managers of the facility... The fact is that we need clubs to work with us otherwise anyone can come in here and claim that they should be training here and that’s not right.” However, when contacted yesterday, Skinner claimed that other clubs, including Concorde, had trained at the venue on Wednesday and that the NAAA was aware that Memphis had planned a session. “When we found out, we thought that it had been opened early... If you’re a competitive person, you want to make sure it’s an even playing field... I did not win my Olympic medal by allowing hurdles to stop me.” He added that a small scuffle had ensued after he was approached by a member of the venue’s staff. “A security guard held on to my hand and I refused to move. When he did that the athletes surrounded us and three others guards came to intervene. There was a lot of shoving and pulling going on for about three minutes. The parents were incensed but I told them to cool it.”
Source: www.guardian.co.tt