The Minister of Youths and Sports, Solomon Dalung, has blamed Nigeria’s poor performances in sports and listed two reasons for this.
They are:
- The inability to groom and replace aging professional athletes with younger talents. It is important that there be a solid structure for finding and nursing young talents that will replace aging and outgoing sports talents in Nigeria.
- Lack of financial capabilities: This is seen when th Federal Goverment refuses to pay the national football teams even when they clamour for their money.
He made the following statements:
“I thank the coach for his determination in grassroots sports development. I discover that we have depleted the profile of our national athletes.
“This has led us to recycle our professional athletes which has resulted to our poor podium performances.
“When I came on board, I came up with a policy of massive grassroots sports development. I have not pretended over this, it will remain the focus and policy in the ministry.
“We must encourage young athletes; we must discover young athletes, develop them so that they can realise their potential.
“I think the gymnastic federation, with others, have keyed into this policy.
“We must practically demonstrate this, and in demonstrating this, we must get younger people involved and much younger ages should be attracted into sports.
“They should be encouraged and supported so that they can develop,’’ he said.
“If we can get more five-year old gymnasts to win medals for the country, in the next five years, Nigeria will have athletes that will dominate the gymnastics space for the next 10 to 15 years before retiring.
Dalung directed the acting permanent secretary of the ministry to ensure that the financial assistance due to the team was released.
Share this
