Develop grassroot sports - Jawula

Sports have the potential to propel the fortunes of the economy of Ghana if developed at the grass-root level, Alhaji M.N.D. Jawula, former Chairman of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) has said.

This, he said called for a grass-root development plan, which has a strategic framework,following up and rolling out activities throughout the country.

Alhaji Jawula, said at the third Annual Sports for Development Seminar in Cape Coast that black people in America and Jamaica performed excellently in sports, especially athletics, football and boxing because they get their grass-root acts together.

He cited some sports personalities like Serena Williams, Tiger Woods, Usain Bolt, Floyd Mayweather and other blacks who had excelled on the international sporting arena, and wondered why Ghanaians, who were also blacks had failed to attain that feat.

“We must not repetitively and boringly cling to the no money syndrome in this country. That is the sure way of demoralizing the young people and being at the tail end of events when we compete with people who look like us,” he stated.

Alhaji Jawula said sports was a big business, adding that in 2013, the sporting industry was worth more than 820 billion dollars, and therefore charged the country to find the resources to start sports at the youthful stage.

He urged the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the National Youth Council and all the sporting associations in the country to stand up to the challenges of the times and ensure that the regulatory authorities do not short-change grass-roots development.

The football administrator bemoaned the fact that other sporting disciplines had been shelved, with the attention only on football, saying though “We have been able to rub shoulders with the likes of Germany, Brazil and Argentina at the highest level in soccer, down at the grass-roots we are not firm enough.”