The Secretary-General, Nigeria Olympic Committee, Tunde Popoola, says the dearth of competitions and the change of playing turf from grass to artificial are responsible for the country’s stunted development in hockey.
Popoola made the assertion in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Lagos.
He said that the change of turf made by the world governing body for hockey from playing on grass affected Nigeria as the country had only a few of such pitch.
“Sometime in the late 1980s the International Hockey Federation (IHF) changed the playing turf for hockey from grass to artificial and that really affected us.
“During our days, hockey was played on grass, but after the change to the artificial turf, our fortunes started dwindling till it got to this stage, among other factors.
“As at then, the cost of constructing an artificial hockey pitch was about N10 million and I can’t think of any state government that can invest in such project in the absence of private participation.
“This really affected us because the playing pattern of hockey on grass is now completely different from playing on artificial turf. The skills and techniques are entirely different,’’ he said.
Popoola said that Nigeria could not compete with other countries that had the artificial turf because of lack of the turf in Nigeria.
“Without artificial turf, we can’t keep pace with countries that are used to the artificial turf because the techniques are quite different.
“In Holland that has a population less than Lagos, they have about a thousand hockey pitches, but in the whole of Nigeria, we have only four hockey pitches.
“The one in Abuja was constructed with the intervention of the then Director-General of the National Sports Commssion, Amos Adamu, when Nigeria wanted to host the All African Games.
“Others are the practicing pitch and another one in Kaduna owned by the military. There is none in the whole of South-Western Nigeria, the hub of hockey, so how do we keep pace?’’
Popoola said that Nigeria had previously been a force to reckon with in hockey through many competitions and grassroots development.
“Nigeria has been popular in hockey as far back as 1978 when our women team qualified for the World Cup. That tells us our place of pride even before football took over.
“Also, we have a lots of grassroots development in hockey. From my secondary school, I attended Government College Ibadan (GCI), where sports was made compulsory.
“In GCI, hockey was the traditional sport and we have seven hockey pitches. We have the central one and others for the various sports house in the school.
“The school was also blessed with an Indian coach. We have groups; the age grade, the junior, intermediate and the senior and we play according to our categories.
“It was also easy for the state government to source for talents among the schools then because we have many competitions where they can choose from,’’ he said.
The NOC scribe said that donning the national colours in their playing days was on merit and players considered it as a pride representing the country and not a motivation by financial inducement.
“Selection for the national duties was always on merit during my playing days. Players were chosen based on merit. No favouritism. We have competitions where we will be selected.
“Playing in national competitions was also honour to us. Many of us just wanted to wear the national colour. Some of us will even engage in our private business to sponsor ourselves.
“For athletes nowadays, they lack patriotic instinct, they only want to play for money. We have great players in this country who should have become millionaires on account of playing for the national team.
“These players refused financial reward as a motivation to play for the country, but ensured a selfless service. We need to bring back those legacies to progress in hockey again,’’ he advised