Who is responsible? [Archives:1998/36/Sports]

The heavy defeats for our youth football team during Asia’s football qualifying matches, held in Qatar last August, were expected. This is not strange because the national team has not even found a sports field to receive training and the time spent in the training camp was very limited. Also, the Football Association and the Ministry of Youth and Sports have not paid proper attention to the team and forgot that our team represents Yemen.
The deteriorating conditions of Yemeni sport were demonstrated at the Yemeni team’s last match against Qatar in which our team was horribly defeated 8-1. If this happened in another country, the Minister of Youth and Sports would resign immediately. But in Yemen, the Ministry of Youth and Sports takes no responsibility for our heavy defeats and bad performances.
The victory achieved by Abdulrahman Abdulaziz last week in the Arab Athletics Championship in Syria, was not enough to make up for the other defeats.
Sportsmen are suffering badly as a result of the hard economic circumstances and their enthusiasm for sport is dampened. Many sports clubs have become like a cafe where you just drink coffee and tea and the sports associations are just names without any meaning.
Thus, our teams come out with heavy defeats and bad performances. All of that reflects the aimless sports planning which is reliant on the ambition of the players and good luck!
The reforms adopted by the government should not be limited to one field. The Youth and Sports field needs many constructive reforms and modern conceptions to keep abreast of the times and to go into the 21st century with a positive attitude.
We urge the Minister of Youth and Sports to ask one player of every club the following questions:
1) How and where do you get training?
2) What sort of food do you eat?
3) What does your sports association provide you with?
Jamal Al-Awadhi
Sport Editor

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