The Lagos State Sports activities Fee (LSSC) has laid out an bold, long-term blueprint to recast the state as Africa’s premier centre for sporting excellence.
Revealed at a media briefing on Friday, the plan leans on three foundational pillars: Sports activities Growth Reforms, a Renewed Grassroots Framework, and a Roadmap to Athletes’ Revitalisation.
Talking alongside the Commissioner for Youth and Social Growth, Mobolaji Ogunlende, LSSC Director-Normal Lekan Fatodu stated Lagos goals to institutionalize techniques that may outlast transient administrations, guaranteeing sustainable development, accountability, and leads to its sporting ecosystem.
The reforms embody the introduction of a web-based athlete registration and monitoring portal, biometric profiling and information seize to strengthen id verification, the institution of a Staff Lagos Monitoring Unit to conduct periodic opinions and publish an annual “State of Staff Lagos” report, the dissolution and reboot of the present senior athletes’ construction to get replaced with a extra disciplined and performance-driven framework, and a performance-based contract regime for coaches and help workers with clear key efficiency indicators and steady schooling alternatives.
Fatodu famous that grassroots growth will play a central position within the new imaginative and prescient. Faculties will function the nucleus of expertise discovery, whereas partnerships with lecturers, mother and father, and neighborhood golf equipment might be deepened to make sure sports activities turns into a visual and integral pathway for youngsters. The state additionally plans to increase sports activities amenities throughout all IBILE divisions, construct capability amongst coaches, and roll out open trials and expertise hubs to create a extra inclusive state-wide pipeline of prospects.
The third pillar, athletes’ revitalisation, focuses on restoring dignity, profession continuity, and empowerment for sportsmen and ladies. Plans embody the introduction of profession sustainability programmes to arrange athletes for all times after competitors, structured exit and probation protocols for underperforming athletes, the appointment of an Athletes’ Liaison Officer to strengthen communication between athletes and directors, and clear efficiency evaluation regimes with clear requirements and open appeals mechanisms. Fatodu defined that these reforms are a direct response to athletes’ requires higher governance, welfare, and engagement, noting that current protests had highlighted the urgency for change.
Whereas challenges equivalent to institutional continuity, funding, and accountability stay, the Fee believes that the daring reforms will consolidate Lagos’s dominance in nationwide competitions and construct a sports activities ecosystem able to standing the check of time. If efficiently carried out, the reforms might reposition Lagos not solely as a state that dominates in efficiency but in addition as a mannequin of construction, inclusion, and integrity in sports activities administration throughout Africa.
