The Honourable Minister of Sports and Chairman of the NSC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi explained that this would lighten the financial burden of the states and make it easy for them to present as many athletes as possible for the games.
According to him, the states are only required to make provision for transporting their athletes and officials to and fro Abuja. “Accommodation and feeding are absolutely free. We do not want to pass on this financial burden to participating states; the National Sports Commission has therefore made sufficient plans for the feeding and accommodation of participating athletes and officials,” Abdullahi stated.
The initial plan was for the states to make provision of N5000 for the feeding of each athlete for the duration of the event.
Meanwhile, the zonal elimination for the team sports began today, November 17, and will be wrapped up on November 11. The team sports that will feature at the games are Football, Basketball, Volleyball and Handball. Eliminations at the zones will streamline the number of teams to participate in the games proper.
Alhassan Yakmut, the Director of Grassroots Sports and Development at the National Sports Commission (NSC) and Chairman of the Main Organising Committee, said today that he was impressed by the interest shown by participating athletes and the states they represent. He disclosed that a total number of 7,177 athletes have registered for the games.
He however explained that the 7177 entries would not be the final figure, as there would be a screening exercise to ensure that the athletes meet the NSC’s minimum standard. After the final screening, Yakmut stated, coaches would only be able to drop some of their registered athletes but not register new ones.
Yakmut said he was confident that the NYG would achieve its objective of talent identification and discovery. “ I am very confident that we will discover new talents who can graduate into our elite and high performance system,” he said.
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