The Western Regional Minister, Joseph Nelson, has emphasized the need to rekindle sporting activities, most especially football, in the region.
According to the regional minister, when proper structures are put in place, sports development will grow in leaps and bounds.
Addressing the management and staff of the National Sports Authority at the Essipong Sports Stadium, the minister mentioned the lack of structures, proper facilities, and management capabilities as a bane to the national growth in sporting activities.
He stated that when such structures are in place, it would help to harness talents in the region as well as the nation in the long run.
The minister underscored the need to properly shape talents in the region to attain greater heights.
” Today, we don’t have any feeding system for our football. So that is why BlackStar is not doing well. I mean, you just look around. How are we feeding our teams? Even with the premiership collapse, how are we feeding them from the bottom?
I think that it’s not just about long speeches. It’s about thinking through what has to be done with the astroturf in a lot of communities now. How do we rekindle sport? Think that it was unidirectional when we set up the astroturf. We didn’t think that we should add, or that’s the point.”
” So it’s just football. We put it there. You put some goalposts there. That’s it. I want to see post-development in this region growing by leaps and bounds, but we must have the structures in place.
And that those structures are going to be put in place by the Ministry of Sport, you know, and then we can support. I told him that we have a model school for sports. And then when we are at the talent in, say, whichever, through the entire schools, we can pull them over. Whereas if they are running a secondary school course, then they are in second. They’ll put them over.”
And then here now, we focus on their development. When we an air talent, we leave them. I mean, they are on their own. How do they go through the regime of even getting to understand what it takes to bring themselves out both in terms of their diet and everything? Nobody thinks that.
So at best, they use their energy and what they understand they have, and raw talent that is not developed to the level that we can call, you know, a level that is that we’ll be able to compete anywhere. Today, the concentration is on football, but even there, we are not developing.
