NSF: Commission bungled female team’s chances of qualifying — Anambra Cricket Association

The Anambra Cricket Association has lamented the inability of the state’s female cricket team to qualify from the South-East Zonal elimination for the National Sports Festival.
Chuma Anosike, Chairman of ACA, made disclosure in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Awka on Friday.
Anosike blamed the development on the refusal of the Anambra Sports Development Commission to sponsor the team to the qualifiers in Enugu.
The chairman, who applauded the Anambra male cricket team for qualifying from the zone, observed that there was no contest in the female category where the Ebonyi girls emerged from.
Anosike told NAN that Anambra had one of the best female cricket teams in Nigeria, and wondered why the team was prevented from participating.
He said: “I don’t know what they are doing, Anambra female cricket team is head and shoulder above any other state in the South-East and one of the best in the country.
“The Sports Commission refused to sponsor them to the qualifiers, that was how we failed to present two teams at the NSF zonal elimination.
“This is a game that we played and are nurturing but it is sad that the efforts are being frustrated; I have been spending my personal money on the teams and if I had known, I would have sponsored them too.
“I congratulate our boys for doing the expected and the Ebonyi girls for enjoying a walkover in the zone.”
Anosike said he was still studying the developments in the Anambra sports sector, and also awaiting the blueprint of the Sports Commission which was passed into law in September.
He said: “We need more seriousness in Anambra sports management, they need to let us know their plans for sports in Anambra.
“Our application for space to build a Cricket Oval is still on for some time now.”
In the same vein, a sports enthusiast, who spoke to NAN on the condition of anonymity, said there was need to constitute a full commission as against the present situation where only the chairman is working.
The source said the situation where one man or one director decides what happened in the commission is inimical to both the development of sports and the athletes.
The source said: “We don’t have a commission yet, what we have is a situation one is in charge, no secretary, no accountants and other positions that should make up the commission.
“The directors around are not advising the chairman properly, and I will say he has even been hijacked that is why nothing seems to be working.”