National Youth Games: Between Fallacy And Reality
The general impression is that grassroots sports development is at its lowest ebb in the country. It is also true that little is going on in most states Sports Councils until the eve of a national competition.
The uninformed blame national sports federations and even the Ministry of Sports for this lacuna, whereas the states are directly in charge of developing sports at grassroots level.
The National Youth Games that just ended in Ilorin, Kwara State is to showcase the best talents from the grassroots sports development programs in individual states.
Is it achieving that objective? The performances of the athletes from each state provides the evidence of success, or not.
The quality and quantity of the 15 year-old boys and girls that are presented at the youth games become a measure of success of a national state sports development agenda.
Unfortunately, beneath the surface of these last Games are some sordid tales, realities that are very far from the expectations.
They reveal the truth of the state of grassroots sports development in the states and in the country, by extention, plus who are not playing their parts well in the process.
