By FRED STURRUP, NG Associate Editor, frederick@nasguard.com, frobertsturrup@gmail.com

The Bahamas Football Association will host the high-profile FIFA (International Federation of Football Associations) 2009 Congress.

It is expected that around 1500 delegates and FIFA associates from around the world will converge in The Bahamas for the meeting. The tourism value to the country will be huge, inclusive of the revenue that will be generated by the hospitality industry. This is yet again another prime example of the significance of sports to this country, and yes, this is another bit of ammunition the good Minister of State for Youth and Sports, the Hon. Byran Woodside can carry into those Cabinet meetings made up mostly of senior ministers. The sports business is big for The Bahamas. We get huge dividends from our elite performers and those who are successful at the regional level. The National Basketball Association players' congress and a variety of regional tournaments hosted here each year provide an ongoing sports/tourism boost for the nation.

I had a meeting with Lionel Haven, the BFA's General Secretary, last week and he informed me that a group from FIFA has visited already visited to look over the general scenario. They have, of course, reported to FIFA that the venue would be ideal. Also, a key arm of FIFA's marketing/organizational sector will spend a lot of time on the island working with the BFA, leading up to the congress to ensure that everything goes well. That's an additional tourism thrust. So much that is exceptionally good has happened for this country through sports. That continues to be the case. It's time for the political powers who make the money decisions to remove the scales from their eyes so that they may see the true Bahamian sports picture.

Successive governments have missed the boat badly. Continually, sports has been treated as a minor ministry, thrown in among three or four others. The facts are evident. Sports should be one of the major government ministries.

If handled properly, the ministries of sports and tourism working together could effectively maximize the nation's sports potential. The way the sports department within the tourism ministry has been treated is another clear case of short-sightedness by our governments.

With icons like Pauline Davis-Thompson, Cecil Rose and Eldece Clarke-Lewis on board, if given a purposeful sense of direction, the department would be bountiful for The Bahamas, but, they have been treated like lepers, not afforded any real funding to work the international sports market. The two senior Golden Girls (now retired) and the other three (Chandra Sturrup, Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie and Savetheda Fynes) should long ago have been made core marketing flagship personnel for the country that has benefited so much from their sacrifices and performances.

It is truly amazing how even during the height of their careers, the Golden Girls were never included on an appreciable level in country's marketing program. If they were Jamaicans, Trinidadians or from the Cayman Islands, or Barbados, they would have graced advertising posters throughout the world, enticing visitors to their homeland. They would have been seen all over world television stations and cable networks and synonymously identified with their country.

A sports department within the Ministry of Tourism is necessary for certain, but, it ought to be properly structured and financially fortified. It ought to make sense. Our sports heroes and heroines who are involved with the Ministry of Tourism ought to be treated with more dignity and better utilized. They know sports. They understand the sports market. It's almost as if those who have not ever been in a position to bring their country sports glory are taking full advantage of the fact that now they are in charge of our sports luminaries and can push them around. That's how it seems.

I have to believe that if our knowledgeable sports people had been given more fundamental decision-making powers, the Tourism Sports Department would be sparkling, a government entity that would have thousands of visitors constantly flowing into this country through sports, and let's look at the irony of it all.

The Hon. Neko Grant is really a sports administrative icon. He is one of those who guided softball in the country to respectability around the world. You would think the Sports Department in tourism would flourish under Grant. He is the Minister of Tourism, but alas, it seems no matter who is in governance these days, sports will get the shabby treatment.

How sad.