NUGA Budgets N80 Million for World University Games

Nigeria University Games Association

Secretary of Nigeria University Games Association, Bola Orodele has revealed the body was committed to flying the country's flag at the 27th World University Games in holding from Saturday July 6 to Wednesday, July 17 in Kazan, Russia.

The body had budgeted about N80 million being for camping of athletes and participation in the games. Orodele said " we are still working hard to get the funds with which to send our team to Kazan.

We have the conviction to do it as as incentive and encourag-ement to the students who have trained so hard in the past few weeks and are eager to showcase their talent on world stage," he said, adding, though NUGA lacks the funds up till now, we are pinning our hope on a timely intervention by the government, corporate bodies and well meaning Nigerians that they could still do something to assist us take part in the games."

Orodele, who also told Vanguard that NUGA has approved and prepared athletes in four sports namely table tennis, chess, athletics and judo for the games then revealed why the N80 million funding for the trip became a hot issue now "we ran into troubled waters with funding because we were not captured in the 2013 budget, but the Council has not given up in that we belief that student sportsmen and women hold the future for sports in the country.

Take chess for instance, it is a sport mostly played by university students and those of other institutions of higher learning in Nigeria which is why we accord the sport high priority during selection of sports that would make the games.

We enjoin the gover-nment and corporate bodies to bear this in mind and render some urgent assistance so we can send our team to Kazan because money put into student- sports is an investment for the future. It is possible more athletes can be discovered for the country through participation in the world university games.

Other countries have already named their teams for the games because of the importance attached to university sports and they have preparing seriously. Nigeria has a lot to gain by doing the same." he stated