Athletics can fetch money if given push- - Lutterodt

Accra, Aug. 28, GNA- Mr George Lutterodt, Chairman of the Ghana Athletics Association (GAA) on Thursday said the Ghana would have nothing to cheer about in sports if she continues to focus attention only on football.

"It seems Ghana has become a mono sport country, I love football but if we put all our hopes in one sport which is soccer, Ghana will not go anywhere".

Enumerating some of the problems being faced by the GAA to the GNA sports, Mr Lutterodt described the current state of athletics in the country as unfortunate saying that the mono 'sporteism' is not only having adverse effect on athletics but sports development as a whole.

He described as pathetic the situation whereby Ghanaian athletes are presently competing alongside the world's best but nothing is being shown on any of the television stations saying if it had been football every effort would have been put in place to ensure live TV coverage.

Mr Lutterodt said many talents are being wasted because investment in athletics is very insignificant. He said Ghana would have been sanctioned by the West Africa Athletics Association if efforts had not been made to send two athletes to the 6th West Africa Junior Athletics Championship held recently in Cameroon where Robert Martey won gold in the long jump.

He said athletics can make money just like football if it is well packaged to attract spectators and suggested that athletics competitions could be held on Saturdays while football matches are honoured on Sundays.

Mr Lutterodt said a company in Accra once expressed interest in the sport and was prepared to put in money but had withdraw after seeing the poor state of the tartan tracks. . The chairman therefore appealed to authorities involved to address the problems by putting in money to help the youth who continue to show interest in the game.