Odegbami demands facilities maintenance after Gateway Games

A member of the 1980 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) winning squad and sports administrator, Chief Segun Odegbami, has hailed the facilities provided by Ogun State for the 22nd National Sports Festival and advised that such world-class facilities shouldn’t be allowed to waste after the Games. Speaking with newsmen at the MKO Abiola Sports Arena […]

A member of the 1980 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) winning squad and sports administrator, Chief Segun Odegbami, has hailed the facilities provided by Ogun State for the 22nd National Sports Festival and advised that such world-class facilities shouldn’t be allowed to waste after the Games.

Speaking with newsmen at the MKO Abiola Sports Arena in Abeokuta on Sunday, the ICC Shooting Stars legend asked the government to imbibe the spirit of maintenance culture in order to protect all the facilities.

Odegbami explained that the sports festival was good for the development of sporting facilities and also to discover young talents.

He noted that the state hosted the event 19 years ago, and if the facilities were well maintained, there wouldn’t have been any need to renovate or construct new ones.

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“The festival is a good thing. It’s not every state that has the capacity to host the festival.

“Ogun hosted in 2006. We put in place fantastic facilities and when you look back now, 19 years after and you see what is on ground.

“Why do you need to spend this amount of money doing these renovations to effect changes if we had maintained what we had in 2006? We have challenges with our maintenance culture,” he said.

Odegbami, recently appointed by Gov. Dapo Abiodun as Ogun state Sports Ambassador, said that the festival would live up to expectations.