AFN: Udo-Obong declares ambition to lead association News

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AFN: Udo-Obong declares ambition to lead association

By Daily Sports on May 15, 2017

Former Nigeria athletics star Enefiok Udo-Obong has declared his interest in running for the presidency of the Athletic Federation of Nigeria, Completesportsnigeria.com reports.

The elections into the board will come up on June 13 and the former international who was in Nigeria's 2000 Sydney Olympics 4×400 relay team that finished second but has had that upgraded to gold after USA were stripped of the prize, disclosed his AFN presidency ambition on Channels Sports on Channels Television on Sunday.

"Let me clear the air. It's not a negative spin to dissolve a board. When you work with the constitution, and you serve in the board and the tenure is over, you leave at the end of the tenure," Udo-Obong stated on Channels Television.

"The current tenure of the board ended in March, but they extended it to April because they said there were differences in time."

The former international agreed that former athletes do not necessarily make good administrators although it has to take sound knowledge of the terrain through training and experience in the business world to be in charge of a federation.

"A lot of former athletes come and tell people that you have to be a former athlete to be an administrator. I can see their point, but you don't have to be a former athlete to be a good administrator.

"I have undergone some training and programmes on sports management. I have not worked for anybody in the past 15 years so I have been able to lead others and that is the experience I want to bring on board. I am formally declaring that I'm running for the position of the president of the Athletic Federation of Nigeria

"Contesting for positions in the federations is now robust and that is why I became interested. See, when you are an athlete, you are an individual, so it is a different ball game to lead others."

Asked about his opinion about autonomy in sports, Udo-Obong said it was not possible to keep government away from the running of sports as a sector.

"Most of these federation presidents that are shouting about the minister's interference came into the board because of government's interference. So you cannot have total autonomy in sports," Udo-Obong stated.

*Photo shows Enefiok Udo-Obong.

Source Daily Sports

Posted May 15, 2017