The Director General of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Gbenga Elegbeleye has said that the NSC is mapping out strategies that will henceforth cater for the welfare of retiree sportsmen in Nigeria.
Elegbeleye disclosed this when a delegation of concerned football stakeholders paid him a courtesy call in Abuja.
The Director General who lamented the plight of ex-sportsmen in the country stated that the arrangement would go a long way to elevate the plights of our senior sports statesmen most of whom have nowhere to go to after the active years in sports.
According to him “ex-sportsmen should have a pension scheme like Civil Servants which they can also fall part on after retirement”.
Speaking further, Elegbeleye said the NSC was working assiduously to harmonise the aggrieved parties of football stakeholders union to have a unified body in order to create an enabling environment for sports development.
He stated that football can only thrive under a healthy atmosphere noting that court litigation by various parties in Nigeria football family has been a bane to sports development in the country.
He therefore used the opportunity to call on all concerned football stakeholders to sheathe their swords and allow peace to reign in the football family maintaining that the NSC will continue to provide a unified front gear for success.
Earlier, the leader of the team, Clement Temile had said that the delegation was at the NSC complex to solicit the support and cooperation of the Commission in the “eradication of poverty and suffering amongst their colleagues”.
He stated that the efforts of the National Association of the Nigerian Footballer (NANF) and Association of Professional Footballer Of Nigerian (APFON) in the past has not elicited the desired results in the area of provision of welfare to ailing members citing the cases of Sunday Ebiogbe, who is presently down with stroke, Eddy Okoyomo, Peter Fregene, Late Rashidi Yekini to mention but a few.
“We feel that the Player’s Union is supposed to be well equipped to cater for the welfare and needs of retiring, current and future players as it is the norm worldwide”.
According to him this unfortunately has not be possible because of the bickering amongst members stressing the need for unity in the associations.
The concerned football stake-holders is an amalgamation of ex-players and current football players both in and outside the country.
