FG's reaction to Athletes Paying their way to Rio 2016
03:14
FG's reaction to Athletes Paying their way to Rio 2016
Nigerian
Athletes that were to represent Nigeria at the Rio 2016 took to social media to
state that the government had told them to pay their way to Brazil and appealed
to individuals and corporate entities to help fund them.
Reacting
to the allegation, minister of sports, Solomon Dalung has released a press release
saying that the allegations are false and that they never asked the athletes to
pay for their fare.
The
press release said, “The Ministry of Youth and Sports Development says it did
not direct foreign-based athletes going to the Olympic Games in Rio to buy
their own air tickets.
“The
Minister of Youth and Sports Barrister Solomon Dalung said this in a statement
following a purported mail asking athletes to buy their tickets to the Olympics
and which was said to have originated from the Ministry. Barrister Dalung
stated that the Director, High Performance Angie Taylor has been saddled with
the responsibility of arranging for the flights and movement of the foreign
based athletes to and from Rio.
“We
did not write any mail asking athletes to pay their way to Rio. As the
overseers of sports in the country, it is our duty to take care of all our
athletes. The letter did not come from us and we will investigate the writer of
that letter. It does not represent our stand concerning the movement of
athletes to Rio and the writer or anybody asking athletes to buy their tickets
to Rio will be investigated. We ask Nigerians and athletes in particular to
disregard the mail” Dalung said. The
The
minister however, regretted the embarrassment caused by the letter and asked
athletes to remain focused on their build-up to the Rio games.
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