The Director-General of the National Sports Commission, Gbenga Elegbeleye, on Tuesday urged the National Assembly to make a law compelling multinational companies in Nigeria to sponsor sports.
Elegbeleye made the call in Abuja while taking the House of Representatives’ Committee on Sports through the ups and downs of Nigerian sports in 2014.
He said it was necessary for multinational companies to contribute a certain amount of money to sports development as the government could not do it alone.
He said: “Before now, we had Leventis Plc, which is not as big as the MTN we have today and some other big companies.
“Julius Berger and Stationery Stores, in those days, ventured into sports.
“But now, the bigger ones are not interested in sports sponsorship.
“We have big multinational companies that don’t get involved in sports sponsorship in terms of their corporate social responsibilities and that is very bad.
“There must be a law to compel them.
“They must contribute a certain percentage, no matter how small, to sports development.
“They must have Sports Clubs in their various organisations and this will help Nigerian sports to grow because government alone cannot do it.”
Elegbeleye added that most of the sports clubs in Nigeria were government-owned and this had not always helped in terms of good welfare conditions for the players and officials.
He said: “Most of the football clubs in Nigeria are also state-owned.
“Of the 20 Premier League clubs we have, only two are privately-owned: Giwa FC of Jos and Gabros International FC of Nnewi.
“While we urge the state governments to consider the welfare of their players and athletes, we also believe that if the clubs are privately-owned and particularly by the multinational companies, they will treat them better.
“Having clubs travel on roads to honour matches does not augur well for the players and it exposes them to many dangers, just like what happened to Kano Pillars FC last week.
“If a company like MTN has a football club in Nigeria, they will not want their players to travel by road on long distances and if it is a company like Arik Air, I think they will do the same.
“But they don’t do sports sponsorship and they leave everything to government and this is not proper.”
Elegbeleye said it was important for corporate organisations to get involved in sports as they would help manage the talents being discovered through the various developmental programmes of the NSC.
He said: “We have deep-rooted projects on ground that we desire to get results from for this country, because we have a lot of talents in this country.
“What we only need is to manage the talents very well.
“And we have no reason whatsoever not to excel in sports, especially in some sports where we have the advantage of doing well in competitions in Africa and globally.
“What we just need is funds and it has been proven over time that the Federal Government grants are not enough to execute these programmes.”
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