The future of disable sports is bleak if... coach

(By: William D. Ezah, GNA Special Correspondent, London, England)

London, Sept. 4, GNA - George Ekem Ferguson, head coach of the national Para-athletics team, has described the future of Ghana in the sport as bleak if immediate steps are not taken to unearth more talents in various aspects of the disabled sports.

He said Ghana has over the last ten years relied on the same crop of athletes for international games without efforts to unearth more talents in athletics and other divisions of para sports.

Coach Ferguson told GNA Sports in an interview in London that some findings by the technical team revealed that there were more talents in disabled sports in the Western Regional capital of Takoradi, coupled with very good tartan tracks at the Essipong Stadium, but there was no funding to embark on a talent hunt exercise.

According to the coach there were no wheel chairs to embark on such an exercise because they are unable to raise the needed funding to purchase the chairs which he described as very expensive.

Coach Ferguson said efforts to look at other sectors of the disabled such as in amputee athletics, table tennis and some few disciplines have also not yielded the needed results because authorities are not just interested in making investments in that area as well.

"Until the Ministry of Youth and Sports through the National Sports Authority (NSA) take a closer look at disabled sports it will collapse in the near future.

"No one is interested in making any form of investments here, but they expect us to win medals at international competitions". he told the GNA Sports.

According to the Coach, disable sports has since 2003 won several medals for Ghana with the 2007 All Africa Games (AAG) as the highest with nine medals, with Ajara Mohammed bagging two gold medals at the last AAG, but this was not enough to attract any form of attention from authorities and the corporate bodies to lend her any support.

Coach Ferguson told GNA Sports that the only way to unearth more talents in the disable sports was to invest heavily by acquiring new wheel chairs and other equipment to assist them in their training.

He was convinced that Ghana could catch up with the rest of the world if the necessary steps are taken to salvage the sport from its present stage.