Former President of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), Amaju Pinnick, has urged new methods of maintaining sports infrastruc­ture in Nigeria.

Pinnick made this call on Tuesday while delivering this year’s person­ality guest lecture of the Facul­ty of Education, University of Ibadan (UI).

The former NFF president said that plenteous and well-maintained sport infrastructure were crucial for Nigeria’s success in interna­tional competitions, calling for a re-dedication to the ethos of maintenance in the country.

“Poor sport infrastructure has the consequence of limited talent development, reduces competitiveness, is a major dis­incentive to athletes, makes it impossible for any nation to host competitions, and has a negative impact on a country’s pride and sense of identity,” Pinnick said, in his paper titled, The Challeng­es of Sports Infrastructure and Maintenance in Nigeria: Prospect for the Podium Performance.

Pinnick said in order to ensure a positive turn-around, there is the need for public-private partnerships in infrastructural development and maintenance, innovative funding models, and adopting modern mainte­nance technologies.

He also spoke about capacity-en­hancement for maintenance experts and a cluster-model that will rank each state of the federation, according to sport infrastructure available in their domain and also engender stiff competition among them for infrastructural sufficiency.

“There are a few success sto­ries on the African continent, such as South Africa and Moroc­co, who have a national sports maintenance agency. We do not necessarily need to copy them; we can develop what will work for us. What is important now is that we must confront this sport infra­structural deficit head-on and the Federal Government, States, lo­cal councils, tertiary institutions, private club owners and private investors all have roles to play,” he said.

“With improved sport in­frastructure round the country, there will be brighter prospects for podium performance by our athletes in international compe­titions, as we will be able to dis­cover more talents in their youth, have the capacity to nurture them and utilize the facilities optimally to blood them to real competitors. In addition, our country will be able to host major competitions, and our national pride and sense of identity as host of big events will be restored.”