The Minister of Youths and Sports, Barrister Solomon Dalung, has expressed regrets over an ’embarrassing letter’ directing Nigerian athletes preparing for the Olympic Games in Brazil to source funds by themselves to pay for air tickets. Dalung said the letter was not dispatched by the ministry and vowed to fish out the writer.
The minister made the claim in a statement signed by his media aide, Nneka Anibeze, which was posted on his Facebook wall.
Dalung noted that the Director, High Performance, Angie Taylor has been given the task of arranging for the flights and movement of the foreign based athletes to and from Rio.
He said, “We did not write any mail asking athletes to pay their way to Rio. As the overseers of sports in the country, it is our duty to take care of all our athletes. The letter did not come from us and we will investigate the writer of that letter.
“It does not represent our stand concerning the movement of athletes to Rio and the writer or anybody asking athletes to buy their tickets to Rio will be investigated. We ask Nigerians and athletes in particular to disregard the mail.”
He, however, tasked athletes to focus on their build-up to the Rio games.
Recall that some of the athletes representing the country at the Olympics in Rio have been forced to source fund through the social media in order to pay for their air tickets.
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