By Ime Bassey

Former Falconet coach, Emmanuel Tetteh Okonkwo has revealed that Nigerian sports have lost its zest due to poor management but hopes that the new sports minister, Alhaji Yusuf Suleiman will revive it has said.

In chat with Sunday Vanguard Sports, the former coach defunct Lagos base professional club side Niger duck FC appealed to the minister to restriction sporting organization support athletes coaches mentally and financially.

“Grassroots should be the key aspect he must attend to in other for sport to grow to its desired height. Early preparation is very key in sports if he wants to achieve all he and we desired.

“In our days, there were different levels of grassroots sports competitions across the country but today they are nowhere to be found. Then, schools had inter-house sports that were functional, inter-school championships were very interesting, not to talk of inter-state competitions and many other championships that were sponsored by government and corporate bodies, but now most of the grassroots developmental championships have been thrown into the trash can.

“He needs to restructure our sporting organization and its structures before any thing can come out of it. He must support all the sporting athletes; facilitate them mentally and financially and also the coaches. If all these things are done, I think we can achieve what we used to in the past. I think we can get back to that level; all we need is support,” coach Okonkwo said.