Sports
‘Change In Season’s Timing Can Help Bafana’
South African FA president Kirsten Nematandani believes the proposed change to the timing of the country’s football season can aid Bafana Bafana.
Changes may see the season switch from August-to-May to a calendar year.
This is to assist local clubs in African competition, but Nematandani says it can also help the national team at the Africa Cup of Nations finals.
“The players will be able to focus on the national team since they are on a break from the league,” he said.
South Africa’s Premier Soccer League (PSL) is considering making the switch in 2014, as it tries to find a way to improve the performances of local clubs in African competition.
Stanley Matthews, the CEO of the PSL, says South Africans teams are weakened by having to register players for Caf competitions in mid-January, which is in the middle of the local season.
“Our clubs are seriously disadvantaged because by the time they get to the group stages of the continental competitions, there are two (transfer) window periods that would have passed where some players have left,” he told Tidesports source.
Even though no South African side has reached the group stages of the African Champions League since Orlando Pirates in 2006, the view is shared by a coach who has won four PSL championships.
“The proposed timing switch will certainly help our teams with their campaigns in the African club competitions,” Moroka Swallows coach Gordon Igesund said.
“We’ve had problems in the past with registering new signings and having to replace players who leave during the off-season.”
Igesund also believes that playing the season through the winter rather than the summer months will benefit local players.
“Playing in the summer months where temperatures in places like Durban and Polokwane, for example, can reach up to 40 degrees is also dangerous and the water breaks we have during each half doesn’t really help,” he said.
“In many cases the players can’t play at their optimum level because it’s simply too hot to do so but that problem could be alleviated by starting games a few hours later,” he added.
Meanwhile, Nematandani was swift to dismiss concerns that it would be too cold to attend many games during the winter months, as many fans found while watching the 2010 World Cup.
For many matches at the first World Cup on African soil, visiting fans complained of being bitterly cold.
“It won’t be an issue. During the World Cup, we went to matches in the night but in the PSL, the games will be played in the day (which is warmer),” Nematandani said Sport.
While the South African FA chief believes finishing the season at the end of a calendar year can help the national side, PSL organisers have other reasons for changing the timing.
They believe that the league is disrupted by the six-week break which comes about every two years as a number of players leave to take part in the competition.
Igesund is not perturbed by the break, one which is scheduled to next take place in 2013 as South Africa itself hosts the finals.
The Sports Writers Association of Nigeria ( SWAN) Rivers State Chapter has set up five standing working committees on Tuesday, in its general congress.
At the playoff held at the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, Onikan, the team of Canice Abua, Michael Emmanuel, Daniel Adeleye, and Abubakar Yusuf was majestic as they restored Nigeria’s hope in a sport that once gave the country so much joy.
Speaking after the final game, Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF) President, Victor Ochei, said the Davis Cup feat is the stepping stone to better days in the sport, adding that the federation has set up programmes that will help the budding talents across the country play at the same level as their counterparts in other tennis-developed countries.
Ochei said: “The whole aim of having this new board is to lift the sport to the level we used to be. I tell you, tennis is taking a new shape in Nigeria. We are putting everything and anything to make that work happen.”
Ochei said that the NTF has looked at sponsorships and how to get the emerging players compete at the same level with their peers elsewhere, adding that the federation is working on organising local competitions and helping the players to compete in international championships.
“We believe that with what we are doing now, sponsors will come to us to organise new competitions. But beyond that, there’s a strategic growth development plan, a 10-year development plan, which the board is working on.
“The programme will ensure that we catch them young. This is because we believe that to create champions, we must start grooming them early. The champions you are seeing today were those groomed yesterday.”
“The process of building new champions will include building the coaches, the players, the infrastructure and sensitising the parents so that we can start catching them as young as age five to six.
“By the time that we groom them through 10 years of training, at age 15, 16, you will see fantastic professional players.”
To achieve the federation’s plans, Ochei admits that the NTF needs a lot of investment, adding that the board is working at realising the funds quietly and tenaciously.
The NTF president acknowledged the contributions of former international stars like Nduka Odizor and Sadiq Abdullahi to the bid to rejuvenate Nigerian tennis, adding that NTF is open to collaborating with former players who know what it takes to play at the highest level of the sport.
He said, “Nduka Odizor is around as one of our VIP personalities. He has been psyching up the boys in the battle with Uzbekistan. He will not enter the court to play, but his mere presence is enough motivation to the boys, who will want to be like him in the future.
“You see, the type of support the Odizors, the Imonities and the Abdullahis got in their time is no longer there, but we are revamping it with the support of our stakeholders in the Diaspora.
“It will appear to take us some time, but I can tell you that the Diaspora support is massive.”
In its bid to get good results in this year’s Commonwealth Games, the National Sports Commission (NSC) has disbursed N200 million as training grants to 26 athletes.
The 2026 Commonwealth Games will be held in Glasgow, Scotland.
The NSC stated that the grants were disbursed through its Elite and Podium Board, noting that N200 million was allocated to select top-performing athletes.
The beneficiaries are both foreign-based and home-based, the NSC said, adding that it will cater for their training and preparation expenses.
According to the NSC, the recipients span several sports, including athletics, wrestling, weightlifting, and para-sports, in line with the Commission’s mandate to prioritise athletes’ welfare and high-performance development.
The Commission added that the disbursement follows the establishment of the Elite and Podium Board, created to implement a scientific and institutionalised support system aimed at sustaining peak performances by Nigerian athletes at major international competitions.
NSC Director General, Bukola Olopade, said the Commission, under the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was established to restore confidence and provide renewed hope for Nigerian sportsmen and women by placing strong emphasis on athlete welfare.
“The training grants disbursed to 26 athletes across different sports followed a careful and professional selection process by the Yusuf Ali-led Elite and Podium Board. This is our way of reassuring our athletes that their welfare remains our utmost priority,” he said.
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