Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Mr Sunday Dare has assured that the new draft Sports Industry Policy will transform sports into a big business in the country, when operational.
The minister said this on Tuesday in Abuja at the virtual presentation of the Draft 2020 National Sports Industry Policy.
The 172 page document was put together by members of the steering committee of the Sports Industry Working Group (SIWG), the policy validation committee and the National sport industry policy drafting committee.
Dare said the event was a milestone , with the capacity to change the face of running sports business in Nigeria.
“This policy no doubt is a new dawn that will drive the process of moving sports away from being recreational to business,” he said.
He said a new sports policy had become inevitable due to the need to update the obsolete 2009 policy and attain international best practice.
“The draft National Sports Industry Policy is a review of the 2009 edition, which is principally intended to update the norms and values in the sports industry in achieving the mandate, vision and mission of the Federal Ministry of Youth and sports Development in line with international best practices.
”It is important to note that this reviewed National Sports Industry Policy will proffer solutions to four issues of: Infrastructure, Investment, Incentives and policy, that
will take sports to the next level,” he said.
The minister commended the Permanent Secretary, Mr Gabriel Aduda, Mr Ufot Udeme the co-chairman and other members of the committee for their valuable contributions towards the draft policy.
He said the document will soon be presented to the public for feedbacks, then submitted to the Attorney-General of Federation to finalise the legal components.
He expressed optimism that the document will be presented to the Federal Executive Council by September or October for approval. (NAN)
