CARICOM and sport

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The Caribbean Community, CARICOM, has been around for several years and is supposed to facilitate the development of the region through collective endeavour. According to the CARICOM website: In 1972, Commonwealth Caribbean leaders at the Seventh Heads of Government Conference decided to transform the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) into a Common Market and establish the Caribbean Community, of which the Common Market would be an integral part.  
 

The signing of the Treaty establishing the Caribbean Community, Chaguaramas, 4th July 1973, was a defining moment in the history of the Commonwealth Caribbean. Although a free-trade area had been established, CARIFTA did not provide for the free movement of labour and capital, or the coordination of agricultural, industrial and foreign policies.
The objectives of the Community, identified in Article 6 of the Revised Treaty, are: to improve standards of living and work; the full employment of labour and other factors of production; accelerated, coordinated and sustained economic development and convergence; expansion of trade and economic relations with third States; enhanced levels of international competitiveness; organisation for increased production and productivity; achievement of a greater measure of economic leverage and effectiveness of Member States in dealing with third States, groups of States and entities of any description and the enhanced co-ordination of Member States’ foreign and foreign economic policies and enhanced functional co-operation.
Note that among the Objectives stated sport has no definitive mention.
Of course we will be told by the same heads of Government that they do have an interest in sport.

Sport in CARICOM
Several years ago, the CARICOM heads of Government appeared concerned about Sir Garfield Sobers, one of the finest cricketers ever produced in the region. They opted to create a job for Sir Garry Sobers by establishing a CARICOM Sports Desk.
Interestingly, when it came to the selection of an individual to head the CARICOM Sports Desk, the regional institution appeared to have crafted criteria that only the phenomenal Sir Garry could have satisfied.