Sports-Direct Boss, Shogbola, Bemoans Neglect of Collegiate Sports
The Chairman of Sports-Direct Nigeria Limited, Mr. Koye Shogbola yesterday condemned the neglect of collegiate and high school sports in Nigeria in the last three decades.
Shogbola, one- time Special Adviser to former Minister of Sports and Chairman National Sports Commission (NSC), said sports in Nigeria has been reduced to participation at international games and championships like the Olympics, FIFA World Cup, All- Africa Games, Commonwealth Games and other events,
“It is sad that a nation renown worldwide as a football nation, does not have football development programme at youth level. I was disappointed when I read in the newspapers that the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) is busy scouting around Europe and America for children of Nigerian parents who could not make the national teams of their country of birth to come and represent Nigeria’’.
Shogbola expressed regret that athletics, basketball, and other sports federations/ associations have joined the football federation in the craze to recruit ‘plastic Nigerians’ instead of embracing developmental programmes with the revival of collegiate and high school sports.
“But the question is, had these countries abandoned collegiate and high school sports the way we did, where are we going to start recruiting athletes, from the moon? I think it is high time we stop scouting for athletes who can win medals on the eve of major games and championships and start investing in collegiate and high school sports’’ said Shogbola, an all-round sports man in his high school days who played football, cricket, rugby and athletics in Nigeria and the United Kingdom.
Shogbola whose company, Sports-Direct was a consultant to former Minister of Sports, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi whose tenure is widely adjudged as the most successful in the Sports Ministry since the return to civil rule in 1999 posited that the way forward for Nigeria’s sports is for government to stop funding elite sports, sports federations and association and channel the funds to collegiate and high schools.
“I can’t just understand why the Federal Government budgets billions for NFF every year, it is sheer waste. Such money should be used for collegiate and high school sports. The craze and struggle to be a member of NFF is because there is cheap money to spend. Once members have to work for money and get sponsors like it’s done in the United Kingdom and other serious nations, those who presently dominate the NFF will no longer find the place attractive.”