Athletes whose names are withheld at the ongoing 7th Kwara State Sports Festival (KWASFEST) has lamented on the demeaning poor coordination, welfare and quality of kits provided for the event.
The athletes told reporters in Ilorin that they are disappointed and not happy as the event is below their expectations despite the Sports minister declaration and strong words to make the event a great one.
“W e are only persevering because of our love for the sports we have passion for, it isn’t about the events but about of passion, we have given so much in preparation for this festival”, the athletes said.
Benjamin Adeyemi, a Handball player from Isin Local Government Area, said the festival was organized like an amateur event,”the festival is so poor, the arrangement looks as if it is an amateur programme”.
”Whosoever is in charge of welfare didn’t do a good job, because we are being treated as if we are secondary school students, For breakfast, we are being given N30 bread with colored water as tea and boiled eggs, the kits are also nothing to write home about, as we were given polo shirts as jerseys which is also of very low quality and they are not even enough,” he said.
Toyin Adewumi from Ekiti Local Government Area said the welfare is not encouraging at all, “May be in the subsequent editions, they can improve, but for now, this is not good at all,” Adewumi said.
Adijat Mohammed who plays volleyball for Oyun Local Government claimed the last meal they were served was lunch on Monday,”We were given rice yesterday afternoon which also served as our dinner, We had to use our money to eat dinner and this morning we were not given breakfast, we resorted to drink Garri before our match starts,” Mohammed said.
Another athlete from Oyun Local Government, Seliat Mohammed, also said it was unfortunate that the festival was revived for athletes to suffer.
Reacting to the complaints, the State Director of Sports, Mr Tunde Kazeem, said the various local government councils were responsible for provision of kits, feeding and allowances and not the state.
He further explained that the Main Organizing Committee (MOC) was only responsible for accommodation, security and other logistics of the host community while assuring that the N500 daily allowances for athletes would be paid on the last day of the programme.
The 7th edition of the festival which opened on Jan. 25 is expected to end on Saturday with Athletes from 16 local government areas of the state featuring in 26 events.
