President of the Nigeria Squash Federation (NSF), Boye Oyerinde has appealed to corporate bodies and individuals to join hands in reviving the game of squash in the country.
Oyerinde stated this on Wednesday when he paid a courtesy call to the Chief Executive Officer of HS Media Group, Taye Ige as part of his efforts to parley with the media to promote squash in Nigeria.
The Nigeria Squash Federation (NSF) was founded in 1974as the governing body that oversees the sport of squash, but little is known about the game by Nigeria which the president described as an interesting game that can shoot Nigeria into fame in the world if proper awareness is created with the help of the media.
“Our plan and strategy is to rebrand the game of squash in Nigeria and the sport really needs a lot of attention,” he said.
“We took stock of all the squash courts in the country and we realized that we have over 300 squash courts in this country but less than 10 per cent of them is being used. Some of them have been converted to living rooms, stores and churches”
“We also took stock of our players and we realized also that we have over 400 registered players in our database and we know they will keep coming once we have lots of competitions”
“As I speak we don’t have a squash national team but we have very good players that could play in any competition in the world and come out with flying colours.
“I know squash facilities and equipment are not cheap to purchase or maintain so we actually struck a deal with a company called Black Knight who promised to provide us with the basic equipment on a subsidized rate to encourage us”
“So we want to see how we can have a various training program to revive the sport in this country. Our target is to build a new set of players who can represent Nigeria in squash competitions across the globe”
“ As you know all this cannot be achievable without you the media to properly project the game to Nigerians so that they can key into it and by so we will be growing the sport and also create and an avenue for people to leave the streets and become useful in the country.” He added.
In his response, the CEO of HS Media Group thanked the president for his foresight in reviving the game of squash and promised he will try his best to ensure that they assist in whatever ways to ensure the sport receive the needed awareness.
