6th March, 2012
Lagos State Commissioner for Sports, Enitan Oshodi, has explained why the state wants to organise the Inter-Clubs competition.
The Inter-Clubs championship will be organised quarterly by the Office of the Senior Special Assistant on Grassroots Sports Development to Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, headed by Prince ‘Wale Oladunjoye, in collaboration with the Ministry of Sports and all the 36 sports associations in the state.
Oshodi disclosed that the aim of the multi-sports championship, in the short run, is to keep the state’s athletes busy ahead of the Sports Festival, which Lagos will host later in the year, while the long run aim is to have a platform where the state will discover pool of athletes for future tournaments.
“The government believes that it is not when we have major tournaments that we should be scampering around to select athletes. In Lagos, we want to do away with the fire-brigade approach, which Nigerian sports is generally known of, hence this quarterly Inter-Clubs championship,” said the commissioner.
“More important is that we want to empower these athletes because the prize monies set aside in the tournaments will be half of the total sum of money for the organisation of the competition, so that the athletes would have substantial amount of money in their pockets as winning prizes,” he said.
Oshodi said that all the chairmen of the 36 sports associations in the state were excited with this initiative because they and their officials will be the personnel to be used to drive the Inter-Clubs championship.
“The sports councils and all the associations will be actively involved. We have both the infrastructure and personnel on ground already. This will reduce the cost of organisation for us to focus on the athletes’ welfare. This is the first of its kind in the country and I believe the present and the future of sports in Lagos are bright,” he said.