The federal government has inaugurated a 10 -man technical committee to draw up the details of the incentives for national sports business policy.
inaugurating the committee on Tuesday in Abuja today, the minister of sports and youth development, Mr Sunday Dare, said the first ever National Sports Industry Policy approved by the President in Council on November 2, 2022, is aimed at moving sports in Nigeria from recreation to Business
The committee which will be coordinated by the Minister of Finance, Mrs Zainab Shamsuna Ahmed, was charged with the responsibility of working out the modalities for the successful transition of sports from recreation to business in the country.
“For over 3 years now, the Ministry has been at work reviewing past sports policies and also dealing with the weaknesses therein. The major weakness was that sports was just categorised as recreation and service, it was not a business and therefore placed financial burden on the federal government,” Dare said..
According to him, Sports Ministry has in line with global practice decided to look at sports as business to enable the Industry also contribute to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the nation,” he stated.
Dare who explained that investment, incentives and infrastructure are the three things that drive Sports as business, funded both by government and private sector, added that the policy is in line with the orientation of government which under the current National Development Plan 2021 to 2025 is based on 70% of funds from the private sector and 30% from government with rebate on tax.
Earlier, permanent secretary, Alhaji Ismaila Abubakar, called on private individuals as well as stakeholders to key into the new policy with a view to taking sports to greater heights.
Responding on behalf of the Committee, the representative of the Federal Ministry of Finance and National Planning, Dr Ladan Haruna, assured that the committee will bring their wealth of experience to bear in ensuring the success of the Policy.
