Govt won’t discriminate against any sport — Hadzide
The government has pledged to maintain its focus on the fair distribution of financial resources to ensure no sporting discipline benefits to the detriment of another.
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According to the Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, Pius Enam Hadzide, the practice where some sporting disciplines were given priority at the expense of others have stifled the lesser-known ones of the needed resources to develop and, therefore, needs to change.
The minister, who disclosed this to the Daily Graphic yesterday, said by spreading the resources proportionately, “we are ensuring that no discipline was left in the cold but they will all have something to help in their development process.”
In recent times, the lesser-known sports have been ruing over their dire financial situation which has impeded any effort at developing, but the deputy minister, in reference to an earlier commitment he made at Manhyia, said the ministry understood their financial predicament and would do whatever it took to avoid discrimination.
“When I accompanied the Black Stars to pay a courtesy call on Otumfuo Osei Tutu last month, I made a similar pledge to ensure the lesser-known sports were not pushed to the back burner during the allocation of resources and we will pursue that rigorously,” the deputy minister assured.
Mr Hadzide observed that the over-concentration on football had made the other disciplines to feel neglected and it was time to redirect attention to them, since they also had the potential of winning medals for the country.
He was also of the view that the time had come for grass-roots development in sports and challenged the various associations to begin honing talents from the early stages to enable them to compete on the world stage.
“If we catch them young and start to train them now, by the time they grow they would be able to compete with any other talent anywhere in the world,” the deputy minister observed.
