EKEJI THREATENS TO DEAL WITH FEDERATION PRESIDENTS

Director General of the National Sports Commission (NSC), Chief Patrick Ekeji, has threatened that he would deal with sporting federation presidents whose teams are caught cheating while at the Youth Olympics in Singapore in September this year.

`Since all federation presidents take glory of successes or failures of their teams at competitions, it is appropriate to warn that the organisers of the youth Olympics have said that they would not condone age cheats at the games and I challenge them to present athletes who are really under-18 years.

`They know I have zero tolerance for cheating and they owe this country that favour of presenting the right age for the competitions. The federation presidents know that they are not under any influence to do the wrong thing` he said

Chief Ekeji disclosed that Nigeria would be participating in athletics, badminton, table tennis, weight lifting, wrestling, taekwondo and tennis for both the Youth Olympic and Commonwealth Games. To this effect, he said that wrestling team had been in camp in Bayelsa and would be in Cairo for qualifiers and training just as the the track and field team was camped in Ondo and the boxing team would travel to Ghana to face boxers in that country as a way of preparing for the Youth Olympics.

He disclosed that Idika Nsofor, the American-based boxing coach was engaged to help polish our boxers for the youth Olympic because he was convinced that he knew the job and would help raise the standard of the game in Nigeria.

Also speaking on the occasion, President of the Nigeria Boxing Federation, Rotimi George Taylor, assured that Nigerian boxers would do Nigeria proud with the efforts being put in place by NSC and the boxing body

He disclosed that they had 16 boxers in camp whose ages were being investigated to ensure that only boxers within the age limits were taken to Singapore.