BY ADEYEMI ROBINSON-ADEFIOYE LAGOS
The Handball Federation of Nigeria (HFN) on Monday commenced a week long online conference/webinar on handball development in Nigeria in celebration of the International Handball Week.
The first day of online webinar which had a several handball technocrats and stakeholders participating actively in the conference, had former President of the Handball Federation of Nigeria and vice President of the Confederation of Africa Handball (CAHB) DR. LANRE GLOVER as the keynote speaker handle the topic “Developing The Game of Handball In Nigeria: Problems and Prospect”
DR. GLOVER in his speech, went memory lane about how handball started and even thrived in Nigeria in the 70s and the 80s and how Nigeria had the best teams in Africa even until the 90s until a decline set in because of maladministration and lack of funding.
He also emphasised the fact that there were world class sports facilities that ensured Nigeria hosted several international handball competition including the world girls handball championship in Bauchi and that the sport attracted lots of corporate sponsorships which ended because of the lack of trust from the corporate world.
He bemoan the decline of the national teams which he blamed on years of neglect of the age grade teams amongst several reasons and inactivity of the senior national teams
He insisted that for Nigeria to get back the glory days, there must be strong and accountable leadership, funding and proper sporting structure.
He praised the SAM OCHEHO led board of HFN for the quality leadership which is bringing the glory days back to Nigeria handball.
The next online conference will be on Wednesday wherein the speaker would be the President of the Angola Handball Federation and the second vice president of the CAHB MR. PEDRO GODINHO.
MR. GODINHO will speak on the topic “How to develop the game of Handball in a country and making it a podium sport: The Angolan Experience”. Time is 1pm.
