NSC PLANS BIG FOR GARDEN CITY GAMES

The National Sports Commission on Tuesday in Abuja said it was determined to improve the organisation and marketability of the National Sports Festivals.

The NSC Director-General, Dr. Patrick Ekeji, said this while declaring open the on-line accreditation training for State Sports Councils' Desk Officers.

The News Agency of Nigeria reported that the training was organised ahead of the 17th National Sports Festival tagged Garden City Games.

'The NSC, through the games' Main Organising Committee, resolved that in line with international best practices, we should make the 2011 NSF more attractive, popular, marketable and profitable.

'This is to set a standard and target for future festivals, in order to enable hosting states make profits and ensure the competition is more qualitative.'

He said on-line accreditation was the vogue in ensuring a hitch-free organisation of events such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games and the All Africa Games.

NSC DG said, 'Our sports festival is as big as the Olympics in terms of athletes, officials and number of sports competed for, but it is not the same with the Olympics in terms of attraction, profit and marketing.

'In order to achieve this, we needed to put in a number of measures. One of them is this on-line accreditation process.

'We therefore decided on training our people down the line to make it possible.'