The Federal Government, on Wednesday, in Abuja, approved the sum of N2.4bn for the construction of a new National Sports Medicine and High-Performance Centre at the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Lagos to be completed in 2026.
The Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, revealed this to journalists after the Council’s nearly eight-hour meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the State House, Abuja.
He said, “The Ministry of Youth and Sports Development presented just one memo. The memo has to do with the National Sports Medicine and High-Performance Center and the construction of a High-Performance Center at the Package B of the Moshood Abiola Stadium.
“Over time in the past decades, one of the drawbacks of sports development and athlete’s development has been the lack of a high-performance centre. Global sports development practice has High-Performance Center as a major component of conditioning its athletes, it takes your athletes beyond just raw talent to some level of sports science and precision.
“The lack of that scientific input into our sports development over time has not helped us to reach the maximum podium performance that can be attained by athletes.”
He argued that, unlike other projects in the past, the new High-Performance Centre has an in-built maintenance structure in its lifecycle design.
Dare said “The ministry, two days ago (Monday), released the list of renovations that have taken place at the Moshood Abiola stadium. 24 renovations and upgrades have taken place at the stadium in Surulere. 16 upgrades have taken place over time. More than 11 functional areas.
“I must say for the record that we’ve been able to bring about a culture of maintenance for the High-Performance Centre. We’re building in two to four years of maintenance for Dangote that fix the main bowl. We built in two-year maintenance.
“Surulere, Premier Loto, two years maintenance with possible renewal, and I agree that without a maintenance culture, no matter how much we invest in our sporting facilities or any building infrastructure for that matter. They will go bad.”
