Rio Olympics: Sports Minister Dalung denies asking athletes to pay their way to Rio
The Ministry of Youth and Sports Development did not direct foreign-based athletes going to the Olympic Games in Rio to buy their own air tickets.
The Minister of Youth and Sports, Solomon Dalung, made the clarification on Saturday in a statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Nneka Anibeze.
This followed widespread reports of some athletes raising funds via social media to transport themselves to Brazil for the Olympic Games.
The athletes claimed to have received a mail from the ministry asking them to pay their own way to the games.
But the statement said that Dalung had made it clear that the Director, High Performance, Angie Taylor, had the responsibility of arranging for the flights and movement of the foreign-based athletes to and from Rio.
“We did not write any mail asking athletes to pay their way to Rio.
“As the overseers of sports in the country, it is our duty to take care of all our athletes.
“The letter did not come from us and we will investigate the writer of that letter.
“It does not represent our stand concerning the movement of athletes to Rio and the writer or anybody asking athletes to buy their tickets to Rio will be investigated.
“We ask Nigerians and athletes in particular to disregard the mail” Dalung said.
It added that the minister regretted the embarrassment caused by the letter and asked athletes to remain focused on their build-up to the Rio Games..
