By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The Minister of Sports, Ibrahim Nyelenkeh has said the ministry will embark on several projects in the New Year to help ensure a brighter year for the future.
Nyelenkeh made the statement in an exclusive interview with Politico on Tuesday.
“So, 2020 we have projects that we will start to implement, projects like recreational facilities and mini stadia. We will also work on increasing allowance and support to all disciplines,” he said.
Nyelenkeh noted that under his watch sport disciplines have succeeded in establishing proper structures leading to greater successes for athletes.
“One of the biggest successes we have achieved here at the ministry is to help the various sporting disciplines to properly establish structures. Before now people run sporting disciplines individually, they embezzled funds and did whatever they wanted. With the help of my team, we have set standards and now we have 36 sporting disciplines in the country that met these requirements,” he said.
This year, Athletics, Cricket, Beach Volleyball, Wrestling, Swimming, Chess and Boxing have all done remarkably well. Some of them won laurels, whiles others improved their stature at home and abroad.
Nyelenkeh said that successes have come down to the support they have been given to these bodies.
But support from the government have not been equitable so far. Football has always taken the biggest share of government’s support. Nyelenkeh admitted to this and said the stature of football cannot be compared to any of the other sports in the country.
However, he said the New Year can only get better with an additional funding from government.
“[When] I came here, we were only getting Le2.5 billion. Last year I fought very hard, so we got Le9billion. This year we have tried, and the government is about to give us over Le21billion,” he said.
He added: “2020 will have a brighter future for sports, all sports not only football. And the future will be brighter with more support, motivation and many other good things.”
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