Nigeria’s Youths and Sports Minister, Sunday Dare’s recent demonstration of care and solidarity to mothers of late heroes like athletics quarter-miler Sunday Bada, as well as footballers Rashidi Yekini, Sam Okwaraji and Ali Jeje with financial assistance, has continued to generate reactions.
Some believe it is a step in the right direction while others think it is not right for the government to continue taking responsibility for upkeep of stars who were paid for their services during their active days.
As the debate goes on in certain quarters, former Nigeria national football team player, Paul Okoku has virtually been on his knees to plead with Nigerians and the government to show love and help his former teammates who are down with various ailments.
Okoku was part of the select trailblazing group of players that made history as the first Nigerian team to a FIFA World Cup of any kind when they played at the World Youth Championship tagged “Mexico 83”. He is a product of the Youth Sports Federation of Nigeria, YSFON, and was vice-captain to Ali Jeje at the Mexico “83 Junior World Cup.
He says “The Minister is doing an amazing job which is unprecedented. Rather than condemn, everyone must support and rally round him to keep it going”.
“I know it is not the responsibility of government to keep looking after retired sports stars, but it is good that the government comes out to help the ones who no longer have the means to fend for themselves”
In a virtual interview with ait.live, Okoku who is based in the United States having moved there decades ago after winning silver with the senior national team coached by Adegboye Onigbinde at the Africa Cup of Nations in 1984 in Ivory Coast, also bared his mind on the argument that players of that generation led a life that did not prepare them for the future.
“It is true to some extent because back then we were too young, most of us still lived with our parents and did not reckon that active football will come to an end someday. Besides we did not have exposure to any financial advisor to help us in management of the little we earned. But I personally had an idea of what path to follow in my life journey which is why apart from football, I worked in a bank back in Nigeria and moved to the United States after making some money playing for Leventis United of Ibadan.
“My focus on what I had in mind is also reason I am giving back through the Greater Tomorrow Children Foundation”. On why as a former footballer he is running a Child Foundation and not a Football Academy, Okoku says “A football related project is good. But It has always been my passion to care for children all-round.
“I also don’t believe a good footballer will necessarily make a good football coach”,
he concluded.
(Editor: Terverr Tyav)
