The dust has mostly settled on the controversy over Youth and Sport Minister Glenn Blakeney's decision to overrule his nominating committee's choice of Athlete of the Year.

While of great interest to sports fans, this was not a life or death question.

Whether a swimmer or a racquets player was made Athlete of the Year is not critical compared to whether a person will have a job tomorrow or whether a young Bermudian is going to get an education they can be proud of.

But what was of concern then was the allegation that Mr. Blakeney overruled the choice of the committee to nominate Roy Allen Burch because Mr. Burch had been critical of Government's lack of funding for swimming and its heavy funding for football and cricket. This newspaper was also told by several sources that the comment by Mr. Burch, who is black, that the divergence in funding was due to the fact that football and cricket are perceived as being black sports and that swimming is perceived as being white was the cause of it.

It was also reported that this decision had been made by Cabinet. That too would be of concern, if it was true, because it would mean that the Government as a whole had stripped Mr. Burch of his title, not out of lack of merit, but because of something he said, which would be a breach of his human rights.

Mr. Blakeney has steadfastly maintained that he made the decision alone and that he did so because he did not feel that Mr. Burch's accomplishment of qualifying for the Olympic Games was as significant as James Stout's world championship.

This is not the place to debate the various merits of world class swimming versus racquets. What can be said is that this was not a banner year for male sportsmen, and the nominating committee had its work cut out.

But it is also fair to say that they did the work and came up with the best choice they could. When asked to rethink the choice after it had been discussed in Cabinet, they refused at which point Mr. Blakeney did indeed make his own choice.

Mr. Blakeney is a relatively new Minister and may have failed to understand that once he took the issue to Cabinet he was effectively making it a Government decision as opposed to an individual one. In any event, as former Premier Sir John Swan wrote last week, any Ministerial decision, whether made collectively or individually, is covered by collective responsibility.

But the major question is: who do you believe? At least one Cabinet source has told this newspaper that Mr. Blakeney took the issue to Cabinet where others raised Mr. Burch's comments. Mr. Blakeney was, the source said, more concerned about Mr. Burch's lack of achievement.

Other sources have told this newspaper that when the nominating committee was asked to reconsider, it was told that the reason was because of Mr. Burch's comments, and on that basis, they rightly refused.

Mr. Blakeney's behaviour subsequent to the story first breaking on ZBM did more harm than good.

The next day, he refused a request for comment at the House of Assembly.

The night after that, he refused to acknowledge two Royal Gazette sports journalists after the awards ceremony, let alone answer their questions or even simply tell them he was not prepared to comment.

Around 11 p.m. the next night – after this newspaper's press deadline – he then accused the same journalists of a number of crimes, including physical and verbal abuse, stalking, and claimed that the sports editor of this newspaper "bordered on physically assaulting" him as he tried to leave City Hall.

These claims were serious and went out in an official Government press release. But none were true.

And this is the problem: If Mr. Blakeney is prepared to publicly lie about being physically and verbally abused, what does that say about his overall credibility on Mr. Burch or anything else?