Abuja to host Sports Festival

The Federal Capital Territory, Abuja is billed to host the 19th National Sports Festival in November after the hosting right was withdrawn from Cross River State by the National Council on Sports on Thursday.
Having postponed the 19th National Sports Festival for six years, the Council resolved that the continued delay of the hosting of the Festival was detrimental to the growth of sports in Nigeria and therefore withdrew the hosting rights from Cross River State.
The Council also approved the reduction of the age of athletes eligible to participate in the National Youth Games and adopted 15 years as upper limit of age for participants, while overaged athletes, their erring coaches and states will be disqualified and fined N250,000 per disqualified athlete.
The council adopted a presentation to National Council on Establishment on Lateral Conversion of Coaches to enable them to progress in their cadres
The Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports was also directed to embellish the draft Implementation Guidelines for the National Sports Policy and circulate to members for inputs, while the revised National Sports Policy for 2018 was also approved by the National Council on Sports and will be reviewed every four years.