Dalung Plans Overhaul of Sports Federation Boards After Rio No-Show

Dalung Plans Overhaul of Sports Federation Boards After Rio No-Show

In the aftermath of Team Nigeria’s poor showing at the Rio Olympics, the Ministry of Youth and Sports is considering a sweep of the boards of the various federations to inject new dynamism in the system.

This was disclosed by Sports Minister Solomon Dalung while assessing the performance of the country’s athletes at the event and looking at ways of improving the sports administration across the board, Punch writes.

Dalung opined that the reviews and reforms planned will make the federations more accountable to the public and equip them in better ways to prepare athletes for major competitions.

“Over the period, we have seen that many of those in leadership need to move on so that people with fresh and better ideas will come in,” he said.

“We are working on a lot of changes and reforms that should see virtually only members who are ready to work and who will get into the board in very competitive and open manners. But definitely there will be drastic changes.”

Elections into the various boards normally come up after the Olympics although no dates have been announced this year, and as Nigerians look forward to these new boards, the National Sports Reform Committee has recommended the scrapping of a government nominee into any of the federations.

It is the norm that these nominees of the government became presidents/chairmen of the boards, but the Godwin Kienka-led reform committee has opposed the retention of such position.

In a proposal sent to the sports minister last month, the committee said: “There should be no government nominee whatsoever on any federation board. Also, no serving officer from the Federal Ministry/National Sports Commission and state sports ministry/sports commissioners/sports councils should be allowed to be in any of the boards.”

Nigeria only won the bronze medal in football at Rio 2016, their first Olympic medal since Beijing 2008.