For centuries, sports have been an important source of entertainment for people all over the world. Today, sports has evolved from being a recreational activity to a multibillion-dollar business packed with punters who bet with bet9ja and professional athletes earning millions every year. Even better, sports offer excellent job opportunities for people who are working in the support services.
Compared to the old system, the sporting world has grown to an industry that integrates technology into the modern-day athletes and creates the state-of-the-art theatre for the young talents to display their skills.
Sports also serve as a tool for international diplomacy, whereby countries display their talents to boost their mage. Some countries like Kenya, the United States, Jamaica, China, Ethiopia, South Africa, Brazil, and Great Britain have continued to thrive because of advancements in technology and their dominance in the most common sporting events.
When it comes to soccer, Brazil, Italy, France, Germany, Argentina, England, Spain, and Holland have continued to dominate in the world cup. One of the countries fading out of the sporting action is Nigeria. It was once on the top ten lists of the world’s best countries for football. In the country, soccer was one of the major competitions from independence until the early 2000s.
During the 60th independence anniversary, most of the country’s sporting figures lamented the nation’s sports development’s downward performance. Many noted that the period between 1998 to present was the worst in terms of governance of the sporting activities. According to the sporting figures, Nigeria has not lived up to the full potential as the country’s sportspersons have continued to have mixed results since independence.
Nigeria’s first step was 1971 with the national sporting commission’s set-up whereby the smartest and brightest sports administrators were running the industry. After that, the national sports festivals were formed in 1976. It served as a platform where sportsmen and women from all over the country came to display their talents. It was the avenue for discovering the young talents who would later come up to the international stage.
Nowadays, national sporting has downgraded. It has become as jamboree where sites recruit mercenaries to win and justify the government’s amount of money on the sporting activities annually. The national sports festivals used to happen every two years. However, it has suffered the issue of schedule due to the host’s inability to stage some of the given timeline events.
The sporting sector in Nigeria has been neglected due to poor administration. The government has been appointing politicians who have little knowledge of the sports to manage it. The sporting sector in Nigeria took a turn for the worst when the Sports Minister Solomon Dalung scrapped the national sports commission and made people make decisions in the sports.
However, there are efforts to revive the country’s sports sector. That is due to some of the efforts put in place by a few individuals and federations. Some of the federations are wrestling, basketball, taekwondo and boxing, trying to revive the sector through the sports ministry’s current leadership.
Funmilola Bolaji is a Researcher, Writer and a trained Educationist; she’s the editor of Campusbiz Journal. You may want to reach her via for Campusbiz Journal related inquiries only.
