London Olympics: Table tennis umpires beg FG for support
By Philips Adefioye
Three Nigerian Table Tennis Federation, NTTF international umpires are at risk of losing their place as Blue badge umpires at the International Table Tennis Federation’s, ITTF ranking.
They have thus asked the Federal government through the National Sports Commission, NSC to come to their aid assist them by providing them with flight tickets costing about $2,000 to travel for competitions.
One of the umpires, John Peters in an exclusive interview with Vanguard sports in Lagos said for them to remain as a Blue badge umpires, they must be up to date in ITTF certified evaluation courses.
Peters hinted that it was self sponsored effort that got them to the level they are, adding that the only way not to drop was to attend more ITTF sanctioned courses.
“In Nigeria, it is just only three of us who are Blue Badge table tennis referees. By Blue Badge, we are the only three that are qualified to officiate at the London 2012 Olympics and to be able to get to this stage we have gotten to, we have to personally sponsor ourselves to attend international championships certified by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).
“As it is now, some of us stand the risk of losing our Blue Badge. We must be up-to-date in our evaluation and we cannot be up to date except we participate in ITTF organised championships. So far some of us need additional evaluations for the next two years.
“Unfortunately for us most of these evaluations are not done within Africa. Most of us need to go outside Africa to do these evaluations. For example in my case, I had to go to China, Japan, USA and many other places in order to able to get to that stage that gave me the Blue Badge.
“I still need to go to other places too. I am a pensioner and I have spent most of my pension on travelling abroad for these courses and if Government want to retain that number, the best the Government can do to sponsor us to international championship where we will be re-evaluated and qualify to hold on to our Badges,” he pleaded.
He emphasised that if on their own that they could get to the level they are now, they need to be motivated and encourage by the Government and NSC because they want the Nigerian flag to be hoisted among the International umpires in ITTF rankings.
“If we can get to this level on our own, we need to be motivated, we need to be encouraged, we need to know that we have the reason to be up there because the list of umpires that will officiate in the London Olympics is already out. The list for the Paralympics will be out any moment from now and it will be interesting if a Nigerian is among them but if we are not currently up to date, I am afraid we might not be included”. Peters emphasised.
