Chairman Tasks Govt On Athletes’ Retirement Benefits

Chairman of Nigeria Volleyball Referees Association, Anthony Oresegun, said in Abuja yesterday that government should work towards ensuring better retirement benefit for athletes.

Oresegun told the Tidesports that if government assured players of their benefits, they would put in their best in every competition.

“All players should be insured; life insurance, so that when you put in your very best, you will know that if anything happens, you can fall back on your insurance.

“If you are sure that if anything happens to you, that your family will be catered for, you will put in your best

“Government really have to work towards ensuring better retirement benefit for players that put in their best,’’ Oresegun said.

Oresegun said professional players performed better at club competitions because they were well catered for by the clubs.

He said: “Professional players for instance; when they go back to their club, they play out their hearts because they know that whatever happens to them will be catered for.

“While in Nigeria, they only pay their match bonuses and that is all and if anything happens to them during the competition, they are left to cater for themselves.

“People like Najeem Maiyegun, the first person that brought Olympic medal to Nigeria in 1964, he is almost going blind and nobody remembers him anymore.

“What happened to Samuel Okparaji, Muda Lawal and the rest of them; they have all been forgotten, but look at somebody like Mohammed Alli.

“Even with the Parkinson syndrome that he has, they remember him, and brought him to light the last Olympics torch.’’

Oresegun noted that volleyball used to be the exclusive preserve of Europeans, but that with the advent of beach volleyball in Nigeria, it has served as a source of tourism.