Rivers State Table Tennis Association, has appealed to the state government to provide training venue to enable the athletes train in preparation for the forthcoming National Sports Festival, (NSF) in Lagos next year.

The chairman of the association, Ibibia Williams made the appeal in an exclusive interview with Tidesports, yesterday in Port Harcourt.

He explained that the table tennis venue at the Alfred – Diete-Spiff Sports complex, had been converted to store by the authority concern.

“What I am appealing for is just a space for us to train. We have no training place.

This is actually hindering us from scouting for players because there is no venue to train the athletes Williams said.

Williams revealed that the association has concluded managements to organize table tennis league every month, adding that lack of training grand may hinder the programme.

“The association is poised to organize table tennis league monthly, and the targot audience of the competition will be local government areas, he stated.

According to him, the aim of the league is to ensure that table tennis sports because number one in the state and more popular them football.

We want to discover hidden talents from our rural areas and to ensure that Table tennis becomes number one in the state” he added.

Williams, also used opportunity to appeal to multi-nationals in Rivers State to assist the association, stressing that government alone cannot develop sports to achieve the desire results.

Tonye Orabere