‘Performance reward fund to promote sports development’

Godwin Kienka

Former national tennis star, Godwin Kienka, has said that the Sports Performance Reward Fund (SPRF) would reduce the growing rate at which Nigerian youths leave the country for greener pastures abroad.

He also said that the fund would bring more youths into the sports sector.
In recent years, many youths, who see no future in the country, have opted to relocate abroad in what has been described as ‘japa syndrome.’

Speaking at the weekend in Lagos, Kienka, who is the SPRF’s executive secretary and author of a book, Sports in Nigeria – Going Round in Circles, said, “the two sure routes of going from rags to riches, from ghetto or slum to a Miami beach house, Banana Island or elite estates are music and sports. This is a global phenomenon, and we are sure that the SPRF will give Nigerian youth, who have tremendous sporting talent and are determined as well as hard working, a sure route to create wealth for themselves and the country.”

According to Kienka: “Examples abound all over the world. The Williams sisters from the drug and crime infested Compton town in California, Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield and Anthony Joshua in boxing, Michael Jordan, Lebron James and Hakeem Olajuwon in basketball and Lionel Messi, Bukayo Saka, Mikel Obi and Victor Osimhen in football, as well as Usain Bolt and Carl Lewis in athletes, have all become rich and famous through sports.

“These young men and women are leaving Nigeria with the hope of finding jobs that will secure their future. The SPRF with its sure reward will give them that hope and assurance that if they have the talent and put in the hard work and sacrifice, they can translate from “rags to riches.”

The SPRF, he said, is targeting to raise an initial N10 billion at a