ABUJA – The National Sports Commission (NSC) said on Wednesday in Abuja that technical directors of some sports federations were excluded from the pre-Commonwealth Games camping beacuse of travel logistics.
Bolaji Ojo-Oba, the Director, Elite Athletes Development, NSC, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) the commission prioritised the athletes in view of logistics problems.
NAN reports that the technical directors of the seven sports in which Nigeria would participate at the Games scheduled for Glasgow, Scotland, could not depart with their teams.
“When we did not have enough seats for athletes to go, there was no point talking of technical directors. Don’t forget, coaching is never done by technical directors.[eap_ad_2]
“Coaching is done by coaches. The coaches are there with them. Technical directors are like glorified spectators, they don’t have much say. They are elected members of the federation.
“They are only calling themselves technical directors; they are to be chairmen of technical committees of the federations but you know in Nigeria we like titles.
“The technical directors will be there eventually but for now, these are the seats we have secured and priority should be given to the actors, the athletes.’’
NAN recalls that Samuel Ekeoma, the Technical Director of Para-Power lifting and Lawrence Ikua-Ibom, his Weightlifting counterpart, were still in Umuahia and Uyo, respectively.
NAN also learnt that the technical directors of the remaining sports were still lobbying to be in Glasgow even if not for pre-tournament camping.
The Games hold between July 23 and Aug. 3 (NAN)[eap_ad_3]