I do not believe last week’s article on the silence of other sports in the country was an attack.

If it was, then I can only consider it as a fair tackle.

Mixed reactions trailed the column that was aimed at jolting other sports back to life, advantage our youths.

Let me compartmentalize the reactions.

They are those who called and wrote on my unfairness and that of my colleagues in the media. According to Jide Olatubosun of Abeokuta in Ogun State, the Nigerian media has never attempted to publicise other sports than football.

“ Let me even start from the grass root. How many of you visit schools for inter house sports competitions? How many of you have come back from such assignments to tell us about potential stars in the making?

“Journalists should be partners in the process of developing sports. Most of you are, by association potential scouts who can help us discover talents in the course of your duty, yet you don’t. All we get to read from you guys these days is how Arsenal has not won a trophy in six years, stories that are all over the internet, yet you down load it with such aplomb that we end up seeing the same thing in all the media, word for word, paragraph for paragraph.

“ as much as I am not holding brief for some of the associations which I agree with you can be lazy, I still believe they can do better than what they are doing now if you all can appreciate their predicaments and partner with them”

I wish I can repeat here, all that Jide sent including what he called “ misplaced investment in football that has not yielded any long lasting results except in the pockets of amateur football administrators”

Dave Jegede is the Technical Director of the Karate Federation Of Nigeria ( KFN).

According to him the press has failed to chronicle the strides that the Federation has taken in the development of the game in the country.

He does not mind the exposure given to football as it were, but insists that it should not be done in the present manner in which “……it has taken the attraction from other sports. Other sports should be given their due.

“If Karate is encouraged, exposed and allowed to run their programmes like football, then even the sky will not be our limit.

“ Karate in the last six months has organized four events/competitions. Two weeks ago we were in London as part of our Olympics and All Africa Games trials and we came back with a gold and a silver. Also we successfully held a national trials after which 42 athletes were selected and camped in preparation for Maputo.

“Other programmes that we have lined out include a friendly with Senegal by month end. Senegal is a force on Karate in Africa. We also have on the cards a training tour of South Korea.

“Let me emphasise that we will always reiterate the fact that in the Olympics as in the All Africa Games, whereas football can only give us one gold with all the compliments of personnel, we stand to pick 16 gold medals from Karate alone.

“All we need, all we are asking for is attention to take the sport to greater heights” the Karate Technical Director said.

I also had an interesting encounter with one of the country’s most successful athletics coaches, Mr Tobias Igwe alias Toblow.

On reading my column he decided to call me. Could not get through so, the next morning as early as five am, he started ringing. I woke up to see more than twelve missed calls and when I finally picked, he was on the phone for over thirty minutes. “ ….Don’t worry Paul, I have credit in my phone” he kept on interjecting as my ears reverberated with his informed commentary on the maladroitness of sports administration in the country.

Because I did “not have credit on my time” I managed to break free by asking him to put his thoughts in writing that I was going to oblige him with some space today.

Why he did not write, I do not know.

Coach Toblow should write. Let Nigerians contribute to the development of sports in this country. Let us ask ourselves why it was easy to discover, train and nurture stars in the past, only for us to falter now even with the benefit of science, technology and improved infrastructure.

Let us marvel at a country that has killed boxing despite the production of world boxing champions in Dick Ihetu Tiger and Hogan Bassey ( Not my father ) in the late sixties.

Let us wonder why the name Mary Onyali is still a reference point in track and field over eight years after she hung her spikes. We should investigate the inability to produce a player in the tennis circuit since Nduka Odizor made a credible fourth round appearance in Wimbledon in 1984.

Here I bring in Deacon Ayo Ositelu, alias Arena, veteran journalist with a passion for tennis.

“ I do not want to sound like a broken record but for the past 20 yrs we committed the blunder of leaving our sport in the hands of someone who did not know anything about sports development.

“The tendency to reduce sports to competitions only is not the best approach. I have stopped watching tennis because I get stomach trouble whenever I do. There is so much lack of quality. Same people, no change.

“The atmosphere here does not augur well for sports development. Take the classical example of Los Angeless where we have not less than 1,000 tennis courts, yet in the whole of Nigeria I do not think we have up to 500 courts. Even these courts as can be found in high brow cities like Lagos, Enugu, Port Harcourt and so on can only be found in exclusive Members Only clubs.

“Kids cannot train on them. To become a star in tennis you need to put in at least twelve hours of tennis a day. Where are the courts and the equipment, when tennis has become an exclusive preserve of the rich?

“The Government must create the enabling environment, build infrastructure and encourage the setting up of industries to manufacture sports equipment that will be affordable.”

Mr Ositelu told the story of Prince, a tennis equipment manufacturing company that came to Nigeria in the late 80s and despite the fact that he exaggerated by telling their officials that there were about five hundred thousand ( 5000,000) tennis courts in the country then, the people still lost interest believing there was not enough market for their goods.

As the Red Devils march to Heaven

I do not appreciate ingratitude. Manchester United is the ONLY team that in the past twenty years has kept the pride of English football intact in Europe,yet there is so much local distractions that tend to tamper with our exalted focus. When I see so called Arsenal and Chelsea supporters insulting the football savvy of Sir Ferguson, God’s gift to the coaching profession, it saddens me.

It is only Sir Alex that can field a team of nine reserves in a critical Champions league semi final match and still emerge triumphant.

Now, all I hear is “ Barca will show you. Barca will show you” as our envious detractors fast and pray for us to falter

which Barca? Those cry babies that believe they are the only ones to hold the ball so much that when you touch them they fall down screaming and whining to the support of the referees ?

May 28 will tell.

See you next week