Head tennis coach of Oyo State Sports Council, Ganiyu Tirimisiyu has raised his concerns over the recurring issue of age cheating and over-age players participating in the junior sporting category as he laid his fears that it doesn’t give room for proper development.
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He made this known during an interview session with Sports247.ng at the ongoing 7th National Youth Games in Asaba, Delta State.
“It’s an event that’s supposed to be a developmental program but what I have witnessed since we arrived, I haven’t seen the point of focus from the ministry because most of the states brought overage players to come and compete in U-15 and below tournament and there’s no gain in that”.
“There’s a need for a change in the screening process and probably leave the screening to the hands of the federations because each association has national tournaments where all age groups will be properly categorized”.
“This is Africa and people do stuff to change age which is really not working for our developmental projects”.
Assessing his team’s performance so far – “Honestly, I’m really impressed by the outing of all my athletes because I really believe in the developmental program and I can’t bring an over-age player to participate in a junior program like this.”
“They showed their skills because the least is from 8-13 years and I’m okay with their performance, they did well. We got a bronze in mixed doubles so if my players meet their age counterparts, I believe they will be able to do better.”
Weighing in on the opinion of scrapping the silverware, Ganiyu Tirimisiyu stated that he isn’t in support of that because when participating in a tournament or event, athletes should know what they are fighting for.
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“I believe we can go back to the federation like I said, we know all these things, so we know their age gradually as they progress”.
Some of the players here are supposed to be playing in international tournaments because they are big players, so scrapping medals is not the right thing to do”, he concluded.
