The President of National Olympic Committee-Sierra Leone, Dr Patrick Coker has disclosed that NOC does not fund or support associations for competitions that have nothing to do with the Olympic Games.
He made this statement when the President of Sierra Leone Lawn Tennis Association informed him about a competition in South Africa where are they are expecting to send their players to participate in March this year. He said so during the presentation of silver medals won by three junior lawn tennis players recently in Nigeria.
Dr Coker told members of the tennis family that the NOC cannot just support associations for other competitions because the money given to them by the IOC is meant for Olympic programmes and they have to report on how the money is spent because they are told to use it for specific purposes.
“We would like to fund associations for tournaments but we cannot because it is not our responsibility. If the competition in March is for an Olympic qualification we could have source funding in a very short time. Even though we don’t have money here but we could have done what we could to provide you with funds for that”.
He revealed that the major role of the NOC is to support athlete’s development by requesting for scholarships for them to be well trained for future Olympics competitions.
He added that they also seek funds for coaches, technical courses that are usually done within the country, as long as the association has identified an expert to be in charge of the training. Sometimes they do support coaches to be present at international training abroad and also assist administrators to attend seminars that are of great benefit to the Olympic movement.
“For example, volleyball requested support in 2015 for the beach volleyball Olympic qualification. And because it has to do with the Olympics we sourced US$ 20,000 in a very short time. So, it is not like we favoured some associations but as long as it is something that has to do with an Olympic development or qualification we will do our best to seek for funds”.
“Our hands are really tied up when it comes to supporting associations for other competitions that have nothing to do with the Olympic Games or an Olympic event,” he said.
Dr. Coker, however, encouraged the associations to look out for Olympic development programmes and inform the NOC earlier about those programs so that they will be able to strive for funds.
By Bernard Turay
Friday Januar 29, 2016
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