DAILY OBSERVER

Liberia’s Youth & Sports Minister Eugene Nagbe has refuted the claim that the on-going County Meet’s organization has been poor, insisting that it is the best organized in recent times.

He said all the fifteen counties received the same treatment, including the timely funds availability for preparation.

He told reporters yesterday that this year’s theme ‘Celebrating 10 Years of Peace Through Sports’ is justified by the overwhelming participation of counties in the various disciplines.

The disciplines are soccer, basketball, kickball, track and field and volleyball.

He said the ‘sports for development and peace’ concept, employed since the 2012/13 Meet, seeks to develop sports infrastructure including stadia across the country with funding from the central government.

Grand Kru County’s technical committee chairman Alfred Sayon disagreed with the minister by saying that the ministry of Youth and Sports did release funds to the counties at that time but they could not cash the money, causing problems with their players. As a result, coupled with experiences in poor refereeing in the preliminary rounds, the 2014 Meet did not achieve its objective, he said.

Though Minister Nagbe did not address Mr. Sayon’s concerns directly, he said everything humanely possible was done to make sure that the Sports Meet is being held to attain the objective of bringing the Liberian people together.

He said it is clear indication that as the meet progresses, Liberians from all sections of the country will join together to celebrate their counties’ achievements, whether a win or a loss because the key objective of the tournament is to celebrate peace.

Contributing, director of public affairs, McCauley Paykue argued that the claim of the 2014 organization being poor is unrealistic and did not reflect the realities of the success of where the tournament has reached thus far.

Paykue pointed out that one of the objectives for the organization of the Meet is to identify sports talents in support of grassroots sports initiatives in the country which is evidently going on as the meet moves on to its successful conclusion.