Athletes’ hopes of competing at the Edo 2020 National Sports Festival (NSF) before the end of the year have been dashed, following revelations that the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Covid-19 has rejected the recommended dates of December 3rd to 18th suggested by the National Council on Sports and the Local Organising Committee (LOC) for the Games.
While speaking on TVC News on Tuesday, November 24th, Deputy Governor of Edo State and Chairman of the LOC Hon. Philip Shaibu said it will be ‘impossible’ to host the games at a latter date in 2020 due to the festivities as well as logistics concerns.
He said: “It is very late to have this tournament this year. They (PTF) haven’t been able to give us greenlight so it’s going to be impossible to have it (NSF) this year. I can tell you that because you will need the states to camp the athletes. For us in Edo State, our plan was to have our athletes camp for 15 days.
“And assuming they give another date now – 15 days to the festive period – it will not be a good time for camping, and other states may want to camp their athletes for one month because they have not been training. So we should just forget about having the tournament this year, not because we are not prepared to host but because of the logistics issues by the PTF.”
