The Lagos State government has promised to deal with principals who field mercenaries to represent their institutions in the state’s grassroots development programmes.

Lagos sports development programme is based on building capacity from the schools and according to the state’s Director of Sports, Dr. Kweku Tandoh, the government would leave no stone unturned in the quest to raise future champions.

Speaking during an interactive session with a select group of journalists at the weekend, Tandoh said ensuring that genuine youths are involved in the state’s sports development programme is the only way of taking the country back to its position in international sports.

“We have started an athletics programme centred around the schools, which means that all the budding talents in the schools will have the opportunity to be discovered and nurtured to stardom.

“To do that, we must ensure that only genuine students, whose position in schools must be attested to by their school principals, are allowed into the programme.”

“If by any chance we discover that the school principal lied in the form given to him to certify the status of athletes fielded by his school, we will hold him responsible and the penalty is dismissal from service,” he said.

Tandoh revealed that the Sports Ministry has met with the transformation commission to restructure the Sports Council such that it would fall in line with the quest for change in the system, adding, “ the current structure of the council will not help us to achieve our objectives.”

The director revealed that the Premier Lotto Secondary Schools Athletics Championship and other schools sports competitions are geared towards getting young athletes for the state’s developmental programmes, adding that the forth-coming DAWN Games, which involves the six states in the South West, would help Lagos fine-tune its preparations for the Calabar 2014 National Sports Festival.

The Dawn Games will hold in Lagos from May 16 to 24, 2014.

He added: “Lagos will go to the National Sports Festival with developmental athletes even though the competition is open to all athletes.

“We believe in developing young athletes, rather than importing elite stars, who cannot help us in achieving anything apart from winning medals and getting bragging rights that in the long run counts for nothing.

“We are also looking at improving private sector participation in Lagos sports.

“We will present it as an opportunity for organisations to maximize gains for their products through participation in our programmes. It is not presented as a community service responsibility because the organisations will get tangible benefits from their involvement.

“We have 38 sports associations in Lagos and each ha the mandate to promote their activities through private sector sponsorship.’