Let’s Take Our Best To International Competition – Hon. Perry Okudzeto

Deputy Minister of Youth & Sports, Hon. Perry Okudzeto has called on the Ghana Olympic Committee (GOC) to send quality athletes than a quantity of no hopes to represent Ghana at future international sports competitions.

Speaking to media men at the GOC boardroom, he said Ghana sports administrators must strategise, be committed, have vision and compete in disciplines that the nation has a relative advantage.

He gave an example of boxing and football, where Ghana has won many world titles and the athletes are capable of performing to win medals.

He advised the GOC to guard against sending many athletes to competition only to come back with one or two medals, but rather specialize in events that can earn the nation laurels.

He commended dynamic sports administrators like president of the Ghana Rugby Union, Herbert Mensah who has led the game to develop and now rated as the most popular sport in Ghana after football.

According to the deputy sports minister, Ghana Rugby is flying high the flag of Ghana in the African continental series, and other federations must emulate the Rugby style and strategy.

He promised that government is ready to collaborate and support federations that show progress in their activities, especially as the nation prepares for 2023 All African Games which calls for the development of more sports facilities.

He noted that sports is business and needs to be branded well and right to attract sponsorship from corporate bodies, so the media have to play their roles efficiently and effectively.

He promised to support the revival of schools sporting activities to groom more athletes from the educational institutions.

Ben Nunoo Mensah, the GOC President took the opportunity of the well attended event to recall some of the achievements of the current administration such as refurbishing the GOC secretariat with new chairs and paintings, creation of a hall of fame, provision of a car and motor bike for administrative purposes and the facelifting of the OlympiAfrica site at Amasaman which the government and other companies must ensure that it is completed at the shortest possible time. He announced that the GOC has supported government financially at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Bahamas, Youth Olympic Games in Argentina, Commonwealth Games in Australia.

He briefed on the upcoming international competitions like the African Beach Games in Cape Verde in June, World Beach Games in Seychelles and the 2019 All African Games in Morocco in August.

The GOC President hinted on the camping base of Team Ghana if they qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

He promised to organize more workshops for the media and sports federations to upgrade their capacity on new trends in Olympism.

On some of the negative reports on sports, he said: “we are dis branding our sports, let’s not our company collapse, let’s not kill our sports” he expressed.

He advised the media to be circumspect in applying for accreditation to cover international sports events like the Olympic Games and future Commonwealth Games as the GOC has learnt a lot from the Australia 2018 problems.