A former Green Eagles player and 1980 AFCON winner, Felix Owolabi, has attributed the poor performance of Nigerian athletes at the just-concluded Paris Olympics to the fire brigade approach by officials and athletes.

The ex-international said this during an interview on Tuesday in Ibadan, Oyo State.

Mr Owolabi, who linked the poor performance to short camping, said the fire brigade approach to local and international competitions would not bring the desired results.

“Nigerian athletes cannot win Olympic medals with their fire brigade approach. The Olympics is not a championship where athletes will just gather in camp for just a few weeks.

“Countries such as US, Japan and China always begin preparations for Olympics immediately after the end of the championship. In Nigeria, the government thinks that it is enough to just disburse a certain amount of money for the competition. We are not doing things the right way; sports have gone beyond the way we take it. Sport is the only sector that unites the country,” he said.

Mr Owolabi also identified poor facilities for preparations as another factor that might have contributed to poor performance of the athletes at the Paris Olympics.

According to him, most sports facilities in various stadia across Nigeria are in deplorable conditions due to poor maintenance and long-term neglect.

“In our time, all the stadia were functioning, while athletes from all over the country got invited for trials. Today, these facilities are lacking. We’ll harness the potential of our athletes with good trainers and coaches when we have good sports facilities,” he said.

Mr Owolabi also noted that many nations of the world were using sports to drive their economies.

“As a nation, we need to ask ourselves what exactly we want from sports,” he said.

(NAN)