The President made his comments following Saturday’s, (19th March, 2011), start of the Junior League of the basketball season, at Basketball City in Basseterre.
He said that his team is still awaiting some of the crucial records and other documents that are needed to better understand the operations of the association, but these have been slow in coming. Additionally, said Tobias, “We were experiencing some challenges with the teams, because despite calling three general meetings to discuss and finalize matters related to the start of the Premier and Senior Leagues, only a few teams and clubs were represented, resulting in two of the meetings being cancelled.
“We had to take a tough position and gave the clubs an ultimatum about the completion of their registration and payment of their fees,” said Mr. Tobias. However, he said that he has been encouraged by the support of his executive members and they have been meeting on a regular basis to ensure that everyone understood their roles and responsibilities.
The President said that only four of the seven teams were represented at Saturdays’ launch of the Junior League, but the opportunity was used to begin the process of developing a comprehensive data base on players, so that their information could be more readily available to the association generally, but also the media and potential basketball scouts. He said that in the past, gaining access to such information was always difficult, and on many occasions, could not be found because of the manual process of information storage. All player details will now be computerized, said the President.
One other issue that the association has been dealing with over the past months, said Tobias, is sponsorship. He said that they are currently at an advanced stage of discussion with the Bottling Company and KFC, for possible sponsorship on the Junior League, while talks are ongoing with LIME to encourage their continued sponsorship for the Premier Division and with National Bank, to gain their support for the Female League.
“We are now working out, internally, all details that would deliver proposals to these companies to ensure that there are systems in place to deliver benefits to the association and our corporate partners,” said the SKABA President.
Saturday’s Junior League was scheduled to open at 5:30 p.m. with two games being played following the march past.