Management bane of Nigeria’s sports, says Shaibu

[FILES] Shaibu

Edo State Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, has described poor management as the bane of Nigeria’s sports. Shaibu, who is in charge of Edo State’s drive to turn sports into big business, believes that the country will get it right when it sports administration is okay.

Speaking in Lagos at the weekend, the deputy governor, who is a registered player of Bendel Insurance Football Club of Benin, said poor management has been hindering the growth of sports sector, adding that things will only get better when technocrats join in building the sector.

“I am in government and I have seen that government cannot run sports successfully because of the bureaucracy in the system. There are so many funny things going on in the system that requires extra discipline to correct,” he said.

Using Bendel Insurance to buttress his point, Shaibu said: “When we came to power, we discovered that the club had over 300 members of staff, some of who were leaving abroad. The club had money but the management size ate up the money such that players were owed several months’ unpaid emoluments. The club had no team bus.

“We had to clean up the system by bringing Mrs. Sabina Chikere to help us rebrand the club. The idea was to make insurance a model professional club with all the rules of professionalism.

“We have scaled the club’s management from over 300 to 15 and we don’t owe anybody salary or any allowance. We have also been able to buy a bus for Insurance with the proceeds of sales of jerseys.”

Shaibu disclosed that Edo State is gradually taking Bendel Insurance and Edo Queens, as well as a few other sports to the private sector and “our target is to list Bendel Insurance in the capital market. What we are doing now is merchandising to boost