THE Federal Government has approved N2.4 billion for the construction of a new National Sports Medicine and High Performance Centre at the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja.
According to sports minister Sunday Dare, the centre is to be completed in 2026.
Dare gave details of the project to journalists after the National Executive Council’s meeting presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the State House, Abuja yesterday.
“The Ministry of Youth and Sports Development presented just one memo. The memo has to do with the National Sports Medicine and High Performance Centre and the construction of a High Performance Centre at the Package B of the Moshood Abiola Stadium,” Dare said.
“Over time in the past decades, one of the drawbacks of sports development and athlete’s development has been the lack of a high performance centre.
“Global sports development practice has high performance centres as a major component of conditioning its athletes, it takes your athletes beyond just raw talent to some level of sports science and precision.”
The sports minister claimed that the new centre is a radical departure from past mistakes of lack of maintenance, as it has an in-built maintenance structure in its lifecycle design.
“I must say for the record that we’ve been able to bring about a culture of maintenance for the High Performance Centre,” Dare noted.
“We’re building in two to four years of maintenance for Dangote that fixed the main bowl. We built in two-year maintenance.
“I agree that without a maintenance culture, no matter how much we invest in our sporting facilities or any building infrastructure for that matter, they will go bad.”
