INTERNATIONAL OLYMPIC ACADEMY 7th JOINT - IOA

For several decades now, especially since the establishment of the
National Sport Commission in 1971 by Decree No. 34, sport
administration has practically been inconsistent, unstable, and highly
epileptic. Between 1971 and 2003, a period of 32 years, there had
been at least 32 national Chief Executives in sport under different
names like Director of sport, Director-General, Executive Chairman or
Honourable Minister for Sport. The life span of each of these
executives had been very short, averaging about 18 months. This
situation had made it difficult for each of them to formulate and
execute any viable national sport policy.
FUNDING OF SPORT
Many of financial problems relate to government monopoly of
sponsorship, inability to provide finances as and when required and
paucity of private sector funding sports.
The Sports Development Department of the Federal Ministry of
Sports and Social Development, (2001) stipulated that all the sports
federations depend on Federal Government for funds and with various
contending priority areas of government, the financing of sports by the
Federal Government has continued to decline. Consequently, the
funding of the sports federations has dwindled over the years hence
the poor performances of our athletes, and teams in international and
global competitions. Sport programmes have always been made to
suffer as a result of lack of funds or poor financial management. Basic
sport facilities are still lacking while the few available ones have been
put out of use due to lack of fund.
Awosika (1996) stated that there should be various levels of
competitions in order for the athletes to show their skills but poor
funding, lack of facilities and lopsided leadership are problems
negating the execution of the sports management in Nigeria. Due to
lack of conducive environment that aids optimum performance, our
star athletes are either drifting overseas or changing citizenship in
order to actualise their dreams in sport. In Nigeria and most
developing countries, the coach and the athlete who are the focal point
are grossly neglected and inadequately catered for, which may explain
their below satisfactory level of performance. In spite of the sport
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