Kofi Adams, the Member of Parliament for Buem and Minister Designate for Youth and Sports, has underlined the necessity of a comprehensive strategy for sports development, stressing the value of grassroots funding and shifting focus away from football and the Black Stars.
Mr. Adams emphasized during his appearance on GHOne TV’s Hard Talk that football and the Black Stars, Ghana’s national football team, are not the only sports played in the country. “Sports is not football, sports is not Black Stars. Sports go beyond football,” he stated. “We must manage and develop all sports holistically.”
Adams emphasized the need to invest in other sports, including as athletics, badminton, boxing, and even traditional games, while also noting the nation’s passion of football and its ability to serve as a unifying factor. He emphasized that, as evidenced by recent All-African Games achievements, Ghana has frequently excelled in underfunded sports on a global scale.
The difficulty of funding sports took up a large amount of the discussion. Adams announced intentions to create a special sports fund that would be financed by creative means like decapped government funding, collaborations with the corporate sector, and targeted contributions from already-existing programs like the District Assemblies Common Fund and GETFund.
“We want to ensure that no sport is left behind,” he explained. “When funds are placed under the management of the sports ministry, we can strategically support grassroots sports and other lesser-funded disciplines.”
In order to construct a coherent sports development strategy, Adams also emphasized the significance of including all relevant parties, including private enterprises, sports federations, and associations. According to him, “leadership will be about ensuring that every federation and association succeeds.”
Adams also recommended that the Ministry of Youth and Sports take over the administration of interschool athletics from the Ministry of Education. Physical education will continue to be handled by education, but in order to guarantee adequate funding and development at the local level, we will look into overseeing interschool sports, he said.
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com