How Coaches Encourage Poaching, Cheating In National Youth Games
The 6th edition of National Youth Games will go down in the history as a tournament where Nigerian sports is taken many years backward.
The idea behind the National Youth Games is to use the competition to discover budding talents who are good enough to replace fast ageing athletes who are on the verge of calling it quit in their respective sports.
Right from the start of the 6th edition of the youth games in Ilorin, Kwara State, it has shown glaringly that all was not well with the organization of the competition, which is being hosted by the University of Ilorin.
The arrival of the state-contingent was badly managed, while screening of participants was done with a lot of questions begging for answers. The rule of the games is that the competition is meant for U-15 athletes, which by common sense should be student-athletes who must still be in schools.
It was however alarming to see directive and the counter- directive on who to screen and who not to screen with the big guns in the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports giving orders, claiming to be from the Honorable Minister of Sports, Mr. Sunday Dare, that some athletes must be given clean bill of health to take part in the Games despite glaring physical pieces of evidence that they are overaged, while some athletes were screened out despite documentary evidence to show that the athletes are still within the age group.
“Concerning the athletes taking part in this competition, as a technical officer who has seen it all in Nigerian sports, I think the coaches are to be blamed for this. The level at which they encourage states to manipulate and corrupt the system is very high,” said Audu Abubakar, who comes from one of the states in the northern part of the country.
P.M. EXPRESS noted during the Games, how a Kogi State coach assembled some young athletes to feature in Ayo for Akwa Ibom. Is this a case of poaching or cheat?
“You can see that this is a glaring case of poaching aided by a coach who decided to sell the children. Though the athletes are not overaged, they are brought in to play for the state other than their own. This was done at the detriment of their own state.
“My brother, it is an open secret that most states which we see doing well on the medal table in the Youth Games cannot claim to get these results with clean hands. They either manipulate the system through poaching and cheating to get to the top. The question is, will this help the country which is looking for young athletes to replace the ageing one? The answer is no, ”Abubakar lamented.
A tennis coach from the southwest zone of the country, who prefers anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the sensitive issue, put the blame on the officials of the Ministry of Sports and sports associations who look the other ways not to stand on the rules of the games.
“I could remember that there were some athletes, who have been screened out, later found their ways back to compete in the tournament after their states presented notes from the ministry to give them the go-ahead. It happened in most sports. I was told of a state competing against Lagos whose footballers were cleared the same morning their match was played. Is this how it is being done abroad? I wonder what kind of sports development we are doing here in Nigeria.
“The effect of this is that those states which bring genuine athletes and prosecute the competition will not get the desired results in the short run, but I strongly believe that it will pay off for them in the long run. They may not top the medal table today, but they are sure of having a pool of athletes who will be the future of sports in their respective. I won’t mention names of states that are on the right path in the southwest. At least we have a good number of them in the region. I can only thank them for doing the right things,” he said.
Related posts
