By KATE OBODO
Technical consultant of Heartland  FC of Owerri, Christian Chukwu  has advised that for sports to be fully developed in the country, the  government should take its hands off  from sports, particularly football organization and  concentrate on the provision  of  facilities . In this  interview with Sunday Vanguard Sports, the former Super Eagles coach said  unless  government washes its  hands off  the control of  sports, sports will remain in its poor state. Excerpts:

Contribution to Sports Development in Nigeria

As a football administrator, my aim is  to improve sports but particularly football in the country with my position even as a technical consultant of Heartland of Owerri FC.  I  believe in grass-roots sports and I have been working towards  discovering players from the grass-roots as it is the bedrock of school sports.

It is important we prepare the  young players that can replace the old ones in the future. So it is not a question of being on the NFF board or chairman of an association before one can contribute to the development of our football. There are so many ways we can partake and develop our football. For now, I have chosen to go down to grass-roots sports.  I have decided to go into clubs, national teams,  the amateur level and even to the streets to get these players.

Sports development in  Nigeria

On the aspect of development, we are not there yet. By now, clubs in the Nigeria Premier League need to have their own pitch or pitches.  I think the government should gradually remove its hands from the running of clubs and concentrate more in providing facilities for our sports,  not only football.

We rarely  see swimming pools where our youths could swim and also be discovered, Lawn Tennis courts, Basketball courts where athletes can be discovered,  Gymnasium for boxers etc. In the past, there used to be clubs and associations in Boxing, Basketball but these things have died  because of lack of facilities . I believe that if our clubs are run as  public limited companies,  it will help the  clubs in  the league and other sports.

Football crisis

As far as I’m concerned, there  shouldn’t be any crisis. It is those who don’t  have anything to contribute to the game that are  causing the problems. Must everybody be chairman or president of the federation? Must everybody be a member of the federation? In life, you need to wait for your turn. And if you don’t succeed, you need  to find another means of survival .

I contested for election and did not succeed, I did not go to court and waited for my turn. There are other ways to contribute to the development of the game,  it is not compulsory that you must be a chairman or member for you to contribute. I see those going to court and making trouble as those who have nothing to offer to the development of the game.

Using Secondary school students  for national team assignments

I don’t have problem with that  but  where are the competitions? Where would Keshi find them? Would  Keshi go from school to school  to get them? Like in the past, most of us and some  athletes were discovered from Secondary School competitions. For instance, Adokiye Amiesimaka, Patrick Ekeji, Segun Odegbemi, Felix Owolabi and others.

It  is no more so. With such competitions, we could  get  the true ages of our players, that is where you can get the real U-17 and U-20 players.

The Problems

The problem is that we have always wanted  to win at all cost. If we should step down  a little bit, we  would have done well in youth tournaments. It is hight time we forgot about winning and focus more on the developmental programmes. We should be able to get  the right ages of players, not using over aged  players so that when it is time to move up to the next level they (players) should be able to move.