17th January, 2014
Nigeria’s dominance at the ongoing Western and Central African qualifiers for the African Junior Championship, AJC, has been lauded by the Chairman, Local Organising Committee, LOC of the competition, Balele Aminu Kurfi.
Balele, who was full of praises for the players’ performance so far, believes that proper preparation of the LOC was responsible for the success.
He also maintained that he was proud of his team (members of the LOC) because the tournament has been ranked among the best in terms of organisation as he disclosed that they have not had any problem since the championship served off at the Abuja National Stadium.
“I am very proud of Nigeria’s performance at this tournament, this is the dividends of our early preparation for the competition. All members of the LOC have done a great job to ensure that this competition is organised successfully,” he said.
Kurfi said his job ends with the organisation of the AJC qualifiers in Abuja as the outing of Team Nigeria in the AJC proper in Kenya next month would be handled by another set of people. “This is because I believe in a one-term in office. Whatever happens to the Nigerian team in Kenya is not something that will bother me because my assignment stops at this AJC qualifiers,” said Kurfi.
Team Nigeria won a total of 12 medals at the end of the first leg of the tournament which has an International Tennis Federation, ITF supervisor in attendance. The second leg is currently ongoing.
Meanwhile, following some unconvincing officiating by the Nigerian umpires at the AJC qualifying tournament, they (Umpires) have been advised to go back to the classroom.
This was the submission of a coach from Mali, Drame Sekou, who believes that the umpires got some decisions wrong due to their inexperience.
“The officiating has not been totally convincing since the championship began. I believe the officials are human beings. My take is that they need refresher courses to update their knowledge. This will help the country and the continent at large,” said Sekou, whose player lost to a Nigerian on Thursday night.
Another coach, Dogbe Koffi from Togo, however believes that the Nigerian umpires have improved relatively since the last time he was in the country.
“With what I have seen here so far, I can say that the Nigerian umpires have improved beyond what I thought.
“That is not to say that they shouldn’t attempt to get better because learning never stops, because this is a technical game,” he said.
—Damilare Okunola/Abuja