Minister missing the real issues: Polye

By MATTHEW VARI

Sunday, January 10, 2016 (Sunday Chronicle, PNG)

The war of words between Minister for Sports Justin Tkatchenko and Opposition Leader Don Polye over the criticism laid by Mr Polye on too much being invested into the sport of rugby league following the report of the country’s 11th place ranking in the world, last week- the minister for sport responded blasting the opposition and stating the government’s achievements in the code to date.

“Don Polye is slapping every rugby league supporter in the face with his call to give up on our rugby league players.”

“This Government will not abandon rugby league, the O’Neill/Dion Government will strengthen rugby league in Papua New Guinea.”

“What absolute rubbish from Don Polye calling for funding to be taken away from supporting Rugby League, when a lack of funding is why from the Somare/Polye Government is the reason why the sport suffered.”

“We are increasing investment in other sports including soccer, cricket, athletics, swimming and AFL and we are seeing results,” Tkatchenko said.

In his rebuttal at a press conference held on Tuesday, the opposition leader hit back at the minister stating that he had missed the point altogether.

He talks about things that are very trivial without addressing the real issues here and that is two issues in regards to rugby league and other sports,” Polye said.

“The first point I am raising here is that the administration and management of rugby league as a sport in Papua New Guinea has been a fallacy,”

“So much time and resource has been given to this particular sport and still Papua New Guinea ranks much lower than even some of those South Pacific Nations like Fiji and Samoa.”

“We cannot just keep on pumping in money and talking about rugby league without addressing this core chronic problem of management and administration of this particular sport that we have not done so well and we are in 11th place and other countries that are smaller than us are far above us.”

“That is why I’ve said fix the management and administration of this. That is not being done- it is opening our eyes to see that there is something that we are not doing right.”

He said the second issue was the diversification into other fields of sport.

“Rugby league is there. What about soccer, cricket, softball, volleyball, athletics and others we can do that. Are we not talented people so we are only talented in rugby league?”

“We have young men and women who are talented in all the sports under the sun on this planet, so if we do not do well in rugby league we can do well in soccer so let us not put all our eggs into one basket only and miss the big picture.”