Ghana’s only Sports college at Winneba is now in a deplorable state after years of neglect by the Ministry of Youth and Sports.
The Winneba sports college established in 1984 once produced great coaches for Ghana’s national teams, athletes, football players, and others who won laurels for the country during their time. The facility has sadly been turned into a hostel and a Guest House for students of the University of Education and private individuals.
The Winneba Sports college was established under the Provisional National Defense Council Regime to train, equip and foster retention of sports coaches, administrators, and sportsmen and women in Ghana.
The facility can boast of eight tennis courts, a football pitch, a Badminton court, Hockey Pitch, Volleyball Court, Handball Court, Boxing gym, etc, Dining hall, and over 100 hostel rooms.
The core mandate of the sports college was to;
i. To train and retrain coaches, sports administrators, and physiotherapists
ii. Organize seminars, conferences, and workshops on Sports management and administration
iii. Provide camping facilities to national teams and local clubs preparing for national and international assignments
iv. Research into sports-related issues and disseminate findings to improve sports performance
v. Collaborate with the Ghana Olympic Committee to run courses for technical resource persons.
vii. To train groups of talented young boys and girls in various Sporting disciplines through the academy concept and to organize holiday training programs, and
viii. Undertake any duty that may be assigned to it by the Ministry.
Former national team stars and coaches like CK Gyamfi, Sam Arday, Osam Doudu just to name a few were all products of the Sports College. It has an academy that also produced the likes of Godwin Attram, Samuel Nkoom, Laryee Kingston, Hamza Mohammed, Michael Essien, etc.
The Facility was to aid in the development of Sports in the country and also serve as a camp base for the various national teams when preparing for National Assignments. Unfortunately, Starr Sports Betty Yawson’s visit to the facility tells a different story.
The sports college over the years has been rendered useless and most of the sports facilities at the venue are in a sorry state.
A top staff at the National Sports College who didn’t want to go on record revealed to Starr Sports Betty Yawson that in order for the current management to generate funds to run the facility, the Sports college has been converted into a hostel and a guest house. The college tries to partner with the University of Education to organize Coaching and technical official courses all in order to generate revenue to run the facility.
Ahead of the 2023 Africa Games which will be hosted in Ghana, Government has promised to build a 50,000 capacity Olympic Stadium with a Multi-Purpose Sports hall for indoor sports aquatic centers for swimming and Tennis court to host competitions and will later be converted into Sports University after the games.
There was no mention of a renovation plan for the sports college which has most of the facilities for the various sports disciplines.
Source: Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/Elizabeth Yawson
