Caption: Minister of Sport Phillip Watts, right, chats with WICB President Dr Kishore Shallow and VP Azim Bassarath (file photo)
By Alicia Chamely
CRICKETER Dwayne Bravo is Trinidad and Tobago’s newest sports ambassador.
This announcement was made by Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs Phillip Watt’s at Thursday’s post cabinet press briefing held at the Diplomatic Centre, St Ann’s.
Watt’s said cabinet had approved the appointment of Bravo as a sports ambassador given his contributions to not only sport, but as well to culture through his music career.
Bravo, a respected all-rounder, is currently the head coach of the Trinidad Knight Riders (TKR).
Watt’s also announced the cabinet’s decision to approve the Citizenship of the Republic of T&T Amendment Bill 2025, which would be brought to parliament as early as possible.
He explained, “The purpose of this bill is to amend the citizenship of the Republic of T&T Act Chapter 1.50 to provide the acquisition of citizenship of persons born outside of T&T if his or her grandparent was a citizen of T&T at the date of his or her birth.”
Currently, the legislation only allows for individuals to apply for citizenship if their parents were born in T&T.
This move would widen the pool of individuals seeking to gain citizenship.
In relation to sport, Watt’s said, “We believe that by introducing the grandparent law, we will create a wider pool of athletes to tap into internationally.”
He said, “Currently, for example, in football, we have 211 footballing countries under FIFA (the world governing body for the sport of football), and we are one of the five countries that do not use that particular grandparent law.”
Joining Watt’s was T&T Football Association President Kieron Edwards.
“T&T is the only country in that group (Concacaf Group B World Cup qualifiers) with Curacao, Bermuda and Jamaica that does not utilise that law,” Edwards said.
He continued, “So, this will now give us that competitive edge again, and we know that if you look at Jamaica, the population is twice our size, and then they draw from their diaspora.”
Discussing the upcoming football games and the World Cup qualifying games he said, “When it comes to our immediate games with this law being changed, we can be able to utilise grand parentage players as soon as in this final round; this will open up over 20 players out of Europe. And over 20 players out of America and Canada, where players have already reached out to us because of the discussion around the grandparent law and wanting to show interest in playing for T&T, representing the country of their forefathers.”
On Friday, T&T would face off against Curacao in a CONCACAF World Cup Qualifiers game. Kick off was at 8pm at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Port of Spain.
