All is not well in Team Kwara camp at the ongoing National Youth Games (NYG) holding at the Sports Complex, University of Ilorin as athletes and officials are planning to boycott the games over stipend, National Pilot has learnt.
According to an official, who spoke to this medium on Wednesday on the condition of anonymity said, โAs I am speaking to you, both athletes and officials are not happy with the way things are going. Before we arrived for this game, we had an agreement of N1500 and N3000 camp allowances for both athletes and officials on daily basis.
โNow, we have been hinted by a reliable source that the money has been reduced to N750 for athletes, as well as N1500 for the officials, as against the initial agreement.
โWe are not happy with this development and we want to express our displeasure over this matter and if this continues, we will have no choice than to boycott the game,โ he threatened.
โWe have not heard anything as regards the payment of our allowances, no ordinary tissue papers in our camp room, our condition is so poor.โ
Responding the Kwara State Commissioner for Sports and Youth Development Hon. Muideen Alalade said he wasn’t aware of the reports that the athletes in camp are not happy.
He said, โI am not aware of such report. The report I got from the camp was that all the athletes are happy and we have started winning medals today.
In a related development, one of the Kwara coaches to the ongoing National Youth Games, Coach Sodiq Bolaji had on Monday appealed to the state government to make a quick response to athletes’ welfare at the games.
Sodiq, a Wushu Kung-fu and Kickboxing coach lamented that the state didn’t have a better preparation before the game due to lack of fund, which they are also experiencing during the game.
Sodiq, who is also the National Technical Director of Nigeria Wushu Kung-fu Federation, noted that apart from welfare aspect, the athletes doesn’t have necessary facilities to use during the games.
He however appealed to the State Governor Alhaji Abdulfattah Ahmed to quickly respond to the yearnings of the athletes in order to have a better outing at the ongoing sports fiesta.
The combat coach insisted that he is not expecting much in terms of winning medals from the athletes due to lack of preparation before the games.
“Our preparation was very poor, if other states have been in camp for a while and up till now, we are not even talking of camping but rather facing lack of equipment for the athletes use at the event, then we are not expecting a good performance.
โWe need to call on the government to make a quick response to the ply of our athletes. Kwara have vibrant athletes and a formidable team and we also have a vibrant Director of Sports, Coach Tunde Kazeem because he encourages, pushes and follow colleagues but nothing goes without financial backing,” he said.
โI’m talking as a neutral person, as somebody who have love for sports and somebody who have been assisting this state in all combats games.
…wins first gold medal in football event
Kwara Team yesterday won its first gold medal at the ongoing National Youth Games (AYG) in football.
Kwara football team defeated Akwa Ibom 2-0 to garner six points in the football event that featured four teams.
Akwa Ibom secured second place with a silver medal while Lagos finished in third place after their 2-0 victory over Anambra state.
Kwara has won a total of one gold, four silvers and one bronze medal, while three silver medals came from Weight lifting and Dat event produce one bronze.
Meanwhile, Team FCT won the first gold medal in beach volleyball at the ongoing 2018 National Youth Games in Ilorin, Kwara state.
As at the time filing this report, Team FCT has won 1 gold, 5 silver and three bronze medals.
Recall that Team FCT won five silver medals in gymnastics, one bronze in male Ayo Olopon, Kumite Karate and Scrabble respectively.
With this development, Team FCT has a total of 9 medals.
