The ball games of the 2024 National Sports Festival in Ogun State began on Monday across different centres in Ogun State, but it wasn’t without hitches for some teams as the Enugu State male handball team were walked over in what was supposed to be their opening game of the event against Edo State, PUNCH Sports Extra reports.
Ondo State’s male football team also suffered the same fate at the Remo Stars Stadium in Ikenne in what was supposed to be their opening affair against Lagos State.
The Sunshine state’s football team’s fate was the first to be decided in the early hours of Monday as their opponents were awarded three points and three goals after they failed to show up for the match.
Checks by our correspondent revealed that the Ondo State male football team had been dropped from the state’s contingent for the sports festival, before their arrival at the games, although the team qualified.
A close source to the team revealed that the team were dropped due to funding, but an official of the Ondo State Sports Council said the decision to attend the festival without the male football team was technical.
“We are not aware of any walkover for our team because they are not here. Although they qualified by finishing second at the zonal elimination, but we had technical issues which forced us to drop them,” Adenike Sanni, the media relations officer of the sports council told our correspondent.
Ondo State’s next match in the male football event is against Kano at the same venue on Tuesday (today) but they are sure not to show up again.
Meanwhile, the Ondo State Governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, who attended the opening ceremony of the Gateway Games 2024, visited the athletes camp on Monday, charging them to compete favourably.
At the Alake Sports Centre in Ijeja as well, Edo State benefited 10 goals and three points from the botched Group B game against Enugu State.
It was also gathered by our correspondent that Team Enugu turned up late for the match due to a protest over allowances which had rocked their camp at the games village, which is situated at the Babcock University, Ilisan Remo, an almost two hours drive to the venue of their event.
The Enugu State players will hope to avert the same occurrence in their next game against Adamawa.
