Leader of the United Workers’ Party Allen Chastanet says Saint Lucia’s progress in sport must be linked to the club system and the Saint Lucia Sports Academy.
In a wide-ranging interview with St. Lucia Times, Chastanet, a self-described sports enthusiast, outlined his vision for sports development ahead of the December 1 general election.
He pointed to the “quadrant plan” first championed by the late prime minister Sir John Compton, which aimed to channel investment into four broad regions of the island. That same principle, Chastanet argued, could be directly applied to sport.
“In Saint Lucia, sports has been driven primarily through the schools. So if you take my constituency as an example, Micoud South, once a person goes to secondary school, that means there is no more sports for them, because they’re going to Vieux Fort or they’re coming up to Castries,” he said.
“So we became very big believers in the club system. So the goal was, we have ten districts in Saint Lucia, to make sure there were at least six or seven clubs per district.”
A former national basketballer, Chastanet did not go into detail as to how such clubs would be managed or supported, either financially or in terms of human resources.
As for how the club system would differ from the existing paradigm, where talented athletes compete for school, club and district under the aegis of national governing bodies, Chastanet suggested that once facilities are built islandwide, the next phase would be to develop a step system, comprising district clubs and regional competitions, leading eventually to national championships.
He further linked the club concept to the Saint Lucia Sports Academy, which opened its doors in 2019, three years into his term as prime minister. Chastanet said that the institution, formerly the Gros Islet Secondary School, was “layered” on the club concept, with the idea being to centralise sports development at the secondary level.
“The benefit of the academy now is all of your top athletes, regardless of where they are from the island, get to go and play together,” he said, explaining that his former boarding school excelled in multiple sports. “One of the contributing factors, I would tell you is [that] we live together, right? We practised all the time.”
SLSA has now been operating for five years, with the declared goals of building championship teams and helping student-athletes secure scholarships. But the institution has never had a scholarship desk or scholarship officer. So far, opportunities for graduates to pursue higher education in the USA have been few and far between.
SLSA has won multiple cricket and football championships in years past, but this year, the trophy cabinet has remained static.
Chastanet credits SLSA with a “significant leap” in cricket. Most of the cricketers now excelling at regional and international level, though, attended traditional secondary schools.
The academy was developed in part by American consultant Don Lockerbie, who also laid artificial turf on playing fields at Soufriere, Desruisseaux, Micoud and Dennery, a cornerstone of the vision for redeveloping playing facilities.
Chastanet is firm in his belief that the academy concept is workable. He insists that it can function as the nexus of a national sports development apparatus.
“The Gros Islet Academy has sports psychologists, nutritionists, trainers, and then the disciplinary coaches,” he shared. “That core team now becomes the training staff for the other coaches. So there was a whole system that we were generating.”
Chastanet added that he had been in dialogue with the world governing body for football, FIFA, to transform Vieux Fort’s Phillip Marcellin Grounds into a regional academy for the sport. In his term as prime minister, Lenard Montoute and Edmund Estephane, both former national track and field athletes, led the sports portfolio. The Cabinet also included Fortuna Belrose, a former national tennis player.
If he secures a new term in charge, Chastanet proposes to raise the profile of the Sports Academy and to implement a club system that will refocus attention at the district level.
