President of the Nigeria Squash Federation, Boye Oyerinde has revealed in an online question and answer forum the state of squash in Nigeria, taking up the presidential role despite lack of resources, it’s challenges and planned renovations hindered by COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.
He narrated his ordeal after his appointment, “I would say, I was prepared for it as I was warned by everyone that it would be a challenge so I took up the position with that in mind, It made it easier to deal with the issues that came up”.
Speaking on the Federation facilities for efficient squash game, he said, “It is more difficult to play in Nigeria, most of our courts are run down. The difference between playing Squash in Nigeria and Outside is that while squash courts in Nigeria have mostly been neglected, As at our last count, we have over 200 squash courts across Nigeria with less than 25% in usable state”
“If you compare with Canada that i am quite conversant with, the community centers have squash courts and an active squash league and all you need to access this facilities is to pay a monthly fee of $50 and one payment gives u access to all squash facilities within a city”.
“Subsequently, we would have made better progress I believe with available resources to work with, we had to build everything from scratch, it is a slow process and should be long term rather than short term because game of squash at the national level when we took over was comatose. We had nothing in place”, he revealed.
“Today, I am happy and proud to say that we have made very considerable progress in bringing the game back to reckoning in Nigeria and in the global circle. One of our major challenges with squash is visibility, a lot of people do not know of the sport due to the game being played in an enclosed environment. I know a place where squash courts are on the 4th floor in an office complex with neglect over the years is also a major factor coupled with the fact that we are not an Olympic sport limits resources being made available to us including funding”.
“When we took over, the PSA had stopped sanctioning the game in Nigeria sighting safety as a major issue, with the assistance of the Late Deji Tinu and the then chairman Lagos state squash association, we were able to rectify that and for the first time in the history of squash in Nigeria, we had 7 PSA Sanctioned tournaments in Nigeria last year and we were able to present a team (though not our best due to challenges with Visa) at the Mens World Team Championship in Washington DC in December 2019”.
“We have put a robust grassroot development program in place and we we planned to start off with the program in Q3 of 2020 before we were hit with the pandemic.
So we should take that wrong perception that Squash is being viewed as an elitist sport. We face quite a few challenges with Infrastructure being the biggest challenge we are facing”, he allayed.
