Team Lagos Slam Poaching Of Athletes

Adewunmi Ogunsanya, Director Of Sports in the Lagos State Sports Council, has condemned poaching, luring and buying of athletes by states competing at the ongoing National Sports Festival in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

He believes that the motive of the Sports Festival has been defeated if states fail to groom their own athletes to compete at the Games because young and talented athletes abound in all nook and crannies of the country.

He told P.M. Sports that Lagos State has decided to compete with young athletes because the government wants to improve their skills.

He added that poaching of athletes is bad for a country such as Nigeria which is stiil far from attaining her potentials in sports.

“Poaching, stealing, luring, enticing, buying or any form of attracting players of other state makes no sense. It’s not the way to go about it, you cannot develop sports this way. It’s just not good for our sports at all,” he said.

He added that Lagos State trained about 70 per cent of the athletes who have come to compete at the ongoing festival which means that the state is richly endowed.

According to Ogunsanya, Lagos will not poach athletes because Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola urged us to come and compete but not to win at all costs.

“I want to say, without exagerating, that at least 70 per cent of our athletes use Lagos’ equipment and facilities to train for this Games. This means they are using Lagos money to develop their atheletes. In Lagos we believe in the development of our athletes,” he said.

He, however, said that there is no one to blame for this wrongdoing, adding that only sincerity and patriotism can stop poaching.

“We need to be truthful and sincere to ourselves. I won’t blame anybody for this, but the underlining factor is that you need to train well and be truthful,” he said.

On Lagos State hosting the games next year, Ogunsanya said that Lagos will surpass the opening ceremony displayed in Port Harcourt.

“We are going to do better than what they have done here (opening ceremony). Hosting state have been able to come up with sublime organisation and opening ceremonies, but next year we will domesticate everything and put up a better show. I’m happy that Governor Fashola’s passion for sports knows no bound,” he said.

—Seun Bisuga