The Deputy Minister at the Local Government and Rural Development Ministry Member of Parliament for the Odododiodoo Constituency is advocating for the nation to focus more on the development and promotion on sports in the area areas that is highly competitive and can put country on the world map when it comes competitions and international engagements.
The Hon. Deputy Minister indicated that as a country we have only focused on the management aspect of sports and failed to focus on the development and promotion which he said is a bad precedence for us because the pillars that every country can build on to increase the growth of sports are promotion, management and development but we as a country focuses only on the management aspect.
Hon. Vandapuje also argued that football is not a highly competitive game for us because across the world countries like Brazil, Argentina and others have identified and developed and promoted football as their strongest and highly competitive game which they do well in and placed them on the world map but Ghana as a country struggles whenever we meet with these teams at the world level.
He has therefore called for the nation to identify which sports is highly competitive for us and focus on it and develop it more so that we are able to compete with other great teams across the globe because there is no country in this world that does well in every sports therefore it will be proper and strategic for us to focus on were we have highly competitive advantage, but he was quick to add that we should not also neglect entirely the other known sports.
Hon. Nii Lante Vandapuje expressed his worries over how as a country we have neglected the development of sports at the basic school level were numerous talents could be identified and developed to become great sports men to compete for the nation for honours at the world level and therefore called for us to intensify the organization of sporting events in our schools to offer opportunity to more talented sports men and women.
The Hon. Minister who himself has been a great sports man called for the country to bring on board people with great ability and knowledge in the development of sports to share their experience in their field to improve sports in the country.