African Games: Judo coach 'exposes' Sports Minister

Ghana Judo coach, Elkanah Dodoo, has clarified that the Judo federation presented their equipment list to the Sports Minister before the 2023 African Games but the ministry could not provide his federation with most of the things on the list.

Speaking with GhanaWeb, Dodoo said, contrary to the Sports Minister's accusations of federations not submitting their list of required items for athletes, essential things like inner for the female athletes that were submitted were not provided.

"Some of the challenges, I can't say it's only Judo. It's broad, all the disciplines. We wrote to them but there were certain items we couldn't get. One, the ladies are supposed to get inner gear to wear but they couldn't provide for us. Secondly, our judogi is not supposed to be the judogi we had to wear. Although, it looks like a judogi the quality is very low."

He emphasised that he has a copy of the list they gave to the minister but not even plasters were provided for the athletes and that he had to purchase an African Games-branded jersey to use as coach's gear.

"Surely. And if you want I can show you a lot of things here. Even plaster, we could not get. When you were watching you saw that a lot of people had their hands empty. Look at me, I bought my own shirt. I bought it for GHC250.

He further appealed to the government to prioritise other sporting disciplines instead of football.

He argued that if the government invests and provides the necessary support to the other sporting disciplines they will win more medals for Ghana in the next few years.

"We want to appeal to the government that they should focus on other sports, especially Judo and Taekwondo because these games can give a lot of medals to Ghana. They have to promote it in the schools because it shouldn't be only football in Ghana."

The Sports Minister in a press conference on Monday, March 11, 2024, stated that Ghana has earned praise for putting together a 'spectacular African Games'.

"Every international organization (and) officials that we have engaged, every one of them is applauding Ghana for a very spectacular organization of the Games so far. So, let us all embrace and come and position Ghana as the sports destination that we are all yearning to position it.

"That is my appeal to the media, there a lot of positives that we can report, let's focus on them and report so that we can position our country, thank you," he stressed.

Sports Ministry couldn’t give us common plaster we included in our list for African Games - Coach of Ghana’s Judo Team reveals

Coach Dodoo was made to pay for the T-Shirt he wore to represent the country.#AfricanGames2023 pic.twitter.com/b86QUxLK1l

— GhanaWeb (@TheGhanaWeb) March 12, 2024