President of the Nigeria Wrestling Federation (NWF), Hon Daniel Igali says the budget for the preparation of athletes for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan must be included in the 2019 budget if the country hopes to have a good participation in the event.
Igali said this in a chat with Sportinglife.ng on Wednesday night on arrival from Tunisia, where Nigerian wrestlers participated at 2019 African Senior Wrestling Championships.
“The issues of funds have almost become like a broken record, it is something that happens with, not just wrestling, but a lot of amateur sports and it has to do with budgeting. We must have proactive budgeting. We have the Olympics next year and we cannot have a budget that will be passed in June next year, the moment we do that, we are already prepared to fail at the Olympics.
“The Olympic budget next year should be encapsulated in this year’s budget. The preparations; all the qualification tournaments, everything to ensure a successful outing in Japan and medal-worthy performances put up by the athletes, have to be achieved this year.
“So if we don’t do that, we are going to continue to experience the same thing we have experienced. It was a tough one for us. But I must commend the Minister of Sports and the permanent secretary that played their roles to ensure that we had some tickets before we left. Also, friends and the Nigeria Wrestling Federation for running around to ensure that we are able to go and come back. Hopefully, we can start looking around to settle some of the debts now.”
Team Nigeria won a total of 13 medals (6 gold, 2 silver and 5 bronze) at the championships in Tunisia and Igali commended the wrestlers for making the country proud.
“I think it was the doggedness of the athletes, the instructions from the coaches, the desire and fire in the athletes to represent their country and to represent it well. I’m really very proud of my athletes and coaches for this enormous feat that we achieved in Hammamet, Tunisia.
“The Tunisians have a very good female team and they were poised to come first, especially on home soil. So, it was a battle and my athletes were really dogged and wanted it bad enough. In spite of the preparations we had, this Nigerian spirit is something else. They get somewhere and in the heat of the moment, they keep firing from all cylinders. I can’t be more proud than this and I want to give them all the kudos, they really did well,” Igali told Sportinglife.ng.