By Bockarie Allieu
232News
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The National Sports Authority has disclosed that out of nine stadiums that will be constructed as captured in their development plan, five of them will be multipurpose stadiums.
This was revealed on Monday 26th February 2024 as the Executive Committee of the National Sports Authority (NSA) and members of Sports organizations signed new sports regulations which cover new registration criteria for all sport associations spanning 2024-2028.
Giving an overview of the new criteria the Director of Participation and Sustainable Sports of NSA, Steven Kelfala said they came up with the new criteria after consulting with relevant stakeholders.
He outlined that within the life span of the new criteria they have series of development plans which they have put in place to develop sports in the country. The document he said will help the NSA and the various associations by reducing time spent every year in making additional regulations for the NOSs. In their development plans he said they will be working with the government to build nine stadiums in the regional and district headquarters towns. Among the nine stadiums he said five of them will be multi-purpose stadiums. These five stadiums he said will have tracks for athletics, courts for Volleyball, Basketball, Lawn Tennis and swimming pool for Swimming if the land is available.
In the issue of building the stadiums he said they have gone ahead to discuss with different business institutions and the government on how to source fund for the constructions. In the new criteria he said they have changed their organogram by changing National Sports Desk officers to Regional Assistant Directors and District Sports officers. He said they will be employing staffs to work in their regional and district offices. By so doing, he said they will decentralize their activities nationwide.
These officers he said will now implement the activities of NSA in their own areas. In return he said they want all Sporting associations to have regional association and not to just base the sport in Freetown alone. These regional associations he said will work with their regional and district officers to take the sports to the communities and schools.
He maintained that they have also planned to take the various sports to the universities and the forces noting that will create the opportunity to have athletes for national teams coming from different sectors.
As government alone can’t fund all the sporting activities, he said they have prepared a document regulatory framework for the Basket Development Fund which they will share with the government and business stakeholders. He furthered that they are going to do a nationwide consultation proposed 11 areas on how to generate fund into the Basket Fund. Kelfala confirmed that most sectors are willing to contribute into the basket fund adding that majority are willing to cut small amount from their salaries every month for the development of sports. The government he said will not support all sports activities but will support vital events. The new criteria also want all sports to report to NSA what they received from international bodies and what they spent every year for transparency sake.
