NYG: We ‘ll be ruthless on age-cheating –Areh

As from next week Friday, hostilities will officially kick-start at the 2018 National Youth Games (NYG) inside University of Ilorin, Kwara state.
Ahead of the Games, Blueprint Sports weekend crew caught up with government official and Director, Grassroots of Ministry of Youth and Sports, Dr Ademola Areh directly saddled with the responsibility of organizing the event who spoke extensively on plans already on ground.
Origin of National Youth Games and age cheating syndrome This is the fourth edition of the National Youth games that will come up at the University of Ilorin Sports Complex, it has now become a ritual that take place every year.
This is a yearly program because is the only developmental program that we have national to take care of the upcoming burden athletes for us to identify them and then they will handed over to the federations who are expected to groom them which some have represented Nigeria in some international competitions especially age group competitions.
Those states that were absent in last edition have signify their participation in this year’s edition and we will be glad to have everybody.
Since is a developmental program and we do not want to deny any child the opportunity because it could be a one in a life time.
Also we are making sure that we look at those areas that have been giving us challenges especially the issue of over-aged athletes.
We have communicated to the states especially the directors and the coaches Bits that we are no longer appealing.
We are telling them that we are going to go back to the rules, which is that any state that uses over-aged athletes will be sanctioned and such athletes will be disqualified from the programme and the state will have to pay necessary fines.
Apart from that, there is going to be a rigorous screening.
We don’t want to rely on certain documentation that can be forged by individuals.
We want to do proper screening which is the reason why we are inviting some external bodies and credible individuals to join us in the screening.
Increasing number of sporting events We are doing about 30 sports and we are pecking the number of events on that so that we can control the number of athletes that will be there, while we are trying to control, we still want to give opportunities to every eligible athletes presented by every state to take part in the games.
The ministry is doing all it can to ensure that the game holds as scheduled between September 7 and 17, 2018.
All the state in the federation have shown interest and we hope that all of them will come despite the cash crunch we are experiencing.
The ministry on its part is doing everything possible to accommodate everybody.
We have been to Ilorin to hold various kinds of meeting and our advance team will also leave in the next few days to go there and make sure that everything is in place before the arrival of the athletes and officials.
Elimination stage What we experienced few weeks ago was the zonal elimination series.
The six zonal elimination series takes care of team sports, because there is no way we can bring all the 36 state football teams to the tournament.
The overall winners will represent the zones at the game in football, basketball, volleyball Hockey among others.
We are not doing anything that is out of the blues except for the inclusion of football.
We have been avoiding this because we believe in football, we have enough program for them and Para- power lifting because the Powerlifters that the country is parading now are aging and we need to bring them in at this level so that we can identify new talents from the states.
Sponsorship bottleneck and hope for better NYG The federal government is still the sole sponsor of the National Youth Games.
We are reaching out to individuals and corporate organizations.
We are trying to sell the brand to them including the marketers of the National sport festival.
We have approached them and they promised that after the sport festival this year, they will look into the National youth games and I can tell you with the plan they have on ground for the National sports festival, the youths games will be better from the next edition.
If you could recall from the last edition, the Honourable minister handed out list of identified athletes and I can tell presently that they are in camp for the Youth Olympic Games.
Some of these athletes were formerly identified at the last two editions of the National Youth Games which is the only avenue where we get our athletes and truly, some of them represented the country.
Influx of athletes Over 4000 Athletes and officials are coming for the games.
It now depends on if such athletes can meet up with the standard set by the ministry.
It is not just coming as the first to third positions but doing it well, meeting the set targets by the ministry.
So, as many Persons as possible that can be identified the better for us because there is a talent hunt committee on ground that will work with the various federations to get this talent for us.
Before, we have been appealing to the directors and officials.
In the last edition, we did a test for a set of twin, Kehinde passed but Tawio failed.
Sometimes, even when you use machine to test these children, any of them, still in the age bracket can still fail.
We all have kids and we can tell who are an under-15 child is and immediately you see them you will be convinced in your mind that this is an under -15 year old athlete.
Agreed some could be tall, fat but not withstanding, we can always determine who an under -15 child is.
It is unfortunate in this era that people intend to have various kinds of birth certificates but I can tell you we are bringing those doing this for a very long time to be part of the screening committee, then, the zonal Coordinators also.
With these people, we are now going to screen the athletes, sports by sports.
For example, we are going to call all the football team from each zone not to wear anything to identify where they are coming from and the officers will go round to check them.
We have written to directors that we will not allow age- cheat, if you have a football them of 18 players and we screen out 16 of them, so be it.
You will not take part in that game.
We cannot continue to undermine the effort of the federal government in ensuring that we have young athletes to nurture that will represent Nigeria in future competitions State of Nigerian sports We are not doing well in sports because our athletes are not parading their real age with the assistance of their coaches because if the coaches do not encourage them, the athletes will not do it.
When the athletes are going to do their passport the coaches will tell them that they should not put their real age instead their sport age, so the age nature will always catch up with them.
In the second edition, I was just where the track and field was taking place and I saw athletes dusting everybody in 400meter, immediately I went there and when I saw that the athletes was not under-17, he was disqualified on the spot so even though the athletes escaped at the zonal level and we try to punish the athletes when we are doing our screening.
While on the field of play, if any state protest that you are using overage athletes and we can prove it, then your team will lose everything, it is going to be very strict this time.
Offender will pay fines and ban at the youth games and that is a very serious issue because once you are banned, that means you cannot take part in each competition for life and there will be monetary fines too which the state must pay.
The fines depend on the level of infringement -we have N2.5 million and N5 million and it was agreed by all the directors of sports at the council meeting that any erring state should be sanctioned and the coach and athletes should be punished and the state must pay fine.
Preparedness of host school I have been to University of Ilorin twice.
I had meetings with the Vice c h a n c e l l o r and the sports council officers and I can tell you if you go there now, the facilities have been given facelifts because they sent us some pictures which we gave them money for and they are doing well for us.
Exclusion of some sports As director of Grassroots Sports, I cannot include any sport in the National Youth Games.
All sports that are allowed to take part at the games, the number was approved at the council meeting by all the directors, so no federation can now come in and say the director should include a particular sport.
It’s not going to happen, it has to be collective decision from all the directors of sports, because if I include any sport now, they have their budget and plans and if I just include and say that shooting and wrestling should come in, how will they take of care of themselves?