Sports Administrator Tasks NSF’s LOC On Successful Hosting

A former sports administrator in Nigeria, Dr. George Ogan, has urged members of Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the forthcoming 17th National Sports Festival (NSF) slated to hold in Rivers State later this year to see the festival as an opportunity to re-awaken sports in the state.

Dr. Ogan, who was the chairman of Athletic Federation of Nigeria (AFN) in 1982, said this in an exclusive interview with Tidesports at the weekend in Port Harcourt.

According to him, putting good facilities on ground to host NSF, does not represent a successful hosting of the festival but ensuring that the state is well placed in the medals table at the end of the day.

“I will say that bringing good or world class facilities to host a sports festival does not actually represent effective and successful festival, but the most important thing is to ensure that athletes feel the impact of the sports festival,” he said.

Dr Ogan, who was also the chairman of Rivers State Sports Council from 1973 to 1976 continued that the major objective of sports festivals is to develop sports from the grassroots.

He explained that why Nigeria is not doing well in sports recently is that the spirit of developing young athletes and growing them is no more there and the coaches have lost focus.

“To bring already made athlete to compete in competitions from another state is not the best approach, the best is to go to the local government areas and groom them, send them to school and detail coaches to care for the young athletes.” he stated.

Tonye Orabere