By Eleanor Gee

A big worry for sports in Tonga is having no Sports Act to provide direction to all local sporting federations, said Inoke ‘Afeaki, Tonga Sports Council (TSC) Program Coordinator, who expects to leave Tonga at the end of the year.

Over the past two years, Inoke helped to address gaps in the structure to assist sporting federations to be more competitive at international competitions, but he feels that more needs to be done,

He told Matangi Tonga on 12 November that the absence of a Sports Act is “the big void”.

“There is no direction, there are no parameters on how sports should be and there’s no true north of where. What are we trying to do in sport?” 

He believes a Sports Act would pave the way forward for the industry such as ensuring athletes are trained properly for sporting competitions in the future, make better use of funding received, provide talented athletes with a pathway to make a living and beyond that, as well as focus on community sports.

Without having the act, the federations are open to interpret their direction the way they feel. Anyone in leadership can come and change direction and go backwards and not know, he said.

“I see that as a major fundamental to set the environment right. Fiji and Samoa got theirs done a couple of years ago. And they got help from New Zealand on that and how to write it up so it’s not a hard process.”

While there is the Tonga Sports Council Act, it is geared at looking after the properties of sport and providing assistance through policies and finance.

“It’s not geared to assist in training, but there is a leeway there, there is training assistance written into the act, it’s just the way you interpret it,” he said.

That leeway enabled TSC to organize a new training program involving strength and conditioning and aerobics aimed at improving the fitness for athletes going to the Pacific Games in Samoa earlier this year.

The program was a success [2] with Tonga winning the most medals ever at a Pacific Games.

Sports management issue

Another issue that could be covered under the Sports Act is selecting professionals to run sporting federations.

Inoke said some people on current sporting boards were not put into that professional environment earlier to learn how to run it at that level,. “It's not their fault.”

“Just as we have tough requirements for players to be at a certain level to go and play at a certain tournament, we need to do the same for the board members.”

"Most of the sports overseas have got big qualifications attached to the roles that you have on the board and that’s clearly missing in our institutions. Are we ever going to be competitive with overseas team sports when they’ve got professionals on board? And you don’t have to be professional you just need to be professionally-minded on making good decisions and looking to better yourself or the group or your team."

Having the right people on boards gives us a competitive edge against all the other countries who have boards who are super smart and will ask for what they are entitled to and ask for more, he said.

“If we don’t know what we are asking for, and demanding what we are entitled to, then we will get close to nothing.”

He added there are some sports federations that are not doing much “and if we are just constantly looking at athletes overseas to hold that sport up, then the other country is doing the investment, not us. So why are we giving you money? There’s issues there with that. It’s a loophole”.

Community sports

There is also a need to focus on the community side of sports to be able to feed into the competitive side seriously.

“Our kids overseas are in that environment at the top level of the world. But there is a vast difference of what we’re doing here at the island level and what’s happening overseas. We just have to be aware of it,” said Inoke.

“There’s a level of people being disillusion that the stuff here is really good and I don’t want to tell them too bluntly, but they don’t quite get that overseas is a different beast. All the kids here are definitely capable of being as good as the kids overseas but it takes time to learn, two to three years with good coaching and being disciplined.”

“You are only as good as your environment,” he added.

He stressed that without a Sports Act, sports in Tonga would continue in its current cycle “because no one is aware of where they are going”.

Sports Act proposal

Tonga Sports Council has submitted a proposal for a Sports Act to government for consideration said Inoke, and they are still waiting to see if it will be considered.

But he is planning to leave Tonga sometime in December with his family although he would still like to contribute to Tonga.

"My options are still open. I still want to help my crazy little island."

Inoke was born in Tonga and is a former professional rugby union player who has captained the 'Ikale Tahi team and played for various teams in countries like New Zealand, Japan, Wales, and France. He has a degree in Physiology from Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand which he completed while playing professional rugby. He was Technical Director for Singapore Rugby Union for five years before returning to Tonga to help prepare athletes for the 2019 Pacific Games through TASANOC and TSC.