By Esther Egbe
The 19th National Sports Festival has been officially withdrawn from Cross River state, National Daily gathered.
The decision was taken at the National Council on Sports meeting which ended on recently at the General Hassan Katsina House, Kaduna.
A voting process was thrown open on the floor of the meeting by the Chairman of the meeting and Minister of Youth and Sports, Barrister Solomon Dalung, with state Commissioners of sports, Directors of sports, Chairmen of state sports councils, sports policy facilitators and other representatives in the sports sector, National Daily learnt.
Having postponed the 19th National Sports Festival for 6 years, the Council resolved that the continued delay of the hosting of the Festival was detrimental to the growth of Sports in Nigeria and therefore withdrew the hosting rights from Cross River State while the Federal government will hold the 2018 edition in Abuja in November.
The Council also approved the reduction of the age of athletes eligible to participate in the National Youth Games and adopted 15 years as upper limit of age for participants while over-age athletes, their erring coaches and states will be disqualified and fined the sum of N250,000 per disqualified athlete.
The Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports was also directed to embellish the draft Implementation Guidelines for the National Sports Policy and circulate to members for inputs while the revised National Sports Policy for 2018 was also approved by the National Council on Sports and will be reviewed every 4 years.