Men’s Volleyball Team Needs Facility to Train

Is the men’s volleyball national team without a space for training? For some time now, the team has been using the B.E.S. Gym for training as there is no sporting facility available to them for development and practice. President of the Belize Volleyball Association Allan Sharp says sports can change the world, but the facilities are needed. 

Allan Sharp

Allan Sharp, President, Belize Volleyball Association

“We have to understand that facilities for sport is not something that’s going to generate income to self-sustain. It is part of the social development of a country. It is part of giving the kids something positive to do. But it is not just the facility, you need programs, you need investment financial. Yes you can say volleyball is doing well, but it took over ten years to grow. It takes a lot of time, a lot of trying to make it work. It takes a lot and the public has to play their role, the media has to play their role, government has to play their role. We need more facilities, we need that the national federations get assistance financially, of course, but also in programs. And I cannot overstate facilities, facilities, facilities. This is very important to development and I don’t think any one sport should be sacrificed for the other sport either. Every sport should be having a facility where they can train. And just to be clear, you cannot train two times, three times a week and think you will win anything. Athletes now to compete have to train six days a week multiple times per day, many hours per day. And to add to that, even at this level, you’re finding that teams have fulltime athletes, and fulltime coaches. We are lucky that we have some fulltime coaches through the sponsorship of Simon Quan and the Belize Olympic Committee and so forth. It is unfortunate at this time that we are not able to practice the way we normally do in preparation – well in the male team cause the female team practice at the STARS Gym. But the male team, which has done well abroad and locally – and next year hopefully we are hosting a male tournament – they need their place to practice as well. We have coaches, we have about four coaches, but if you don’t have facility and a set time – it has to be in a programmed way. It cannot be scatter shot. And it is not to take away from any other sport, all sport need their time and space to fit. Belize Volleyball right now the men are suffering. We need help, we need a place to practice.”