The Federal Government has been urged to invest more in school sports so as to discover more talents at the tender age for the country, as Yellow House emerged champions of the inter house sports competition of Roemic Group of Schools, Ibadan.
Speaking during the meet held recently at the Obafemi Awolowo Stadium, Ibadan, Mr Olatunji Akinsesin, chairman of the event pointed out that there was the need for the government at all levels to promote sporting activities at the grassroots level.
Akinsesin noted that the catch-them-young programme is very important in identifying and developing talents to compete at the international level.
“Other countries invest in all sports, not only football and that is why they are making waves at international level. It is unfortunate that the government of the day only sees sportsmen and women after they are have developed and become world-class athletes.
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“There is what we used to call ‘catch-them-young’ and this initiative has been helping sports to develop. In those days, government’s personnel used to visit primary and secondary school’s sporting activities to discover talents that will be groomed and exposed to stardom but the reverse is the case today.
“People like Chief Segun Odegbami, Felix Owolabi, the late Alloysius Atuegbu and a host of other national team players then were mostly discovered while they were in school. Unfortunately today, a player must make name first before he will be invited to the national team.
“I urge the Federal Government to implement what we used to call ‘Principal’s Cup and Principals programmes in school those days to reactivate and encourage the younger ones because I believe we have abundance of talents in this country,” Akinsesin told Sportingtribune.
Meanwhile, proprietress of the school, Mrs Omotara Taiwo, also stressed the need for the authorities to also encourage sports competition amongst private schools in the country so as to further discover talents, saying the focus should not be only on public schools alone.
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“I’m grateful to God, to parents and students for making this a wonderful event. We ought to have organised this inter house sports competition earlier but for COVID-19 and some situation in the country and I’m impressed with the turnout,” she noted.
Taiwo urged all school owners to provide sporting arena for their wards to be engaged in sporting activities in the course of pursuing academics.
“The children must be develop in totality, we have the cognitive, the affective and the sycomotor which we are witnessing today. The affective has to do with the emotion of the children and the cognitive has to do with the academics. So, all should not be academics, these children should be exposed to sporting activities which would also develop them physically and mentally and paraventure, some of them could end up as professional athletes in future.”