UG Sports Directorate urges corporate Ghana to invest in students athletes

Director of the University of Ghana Sports Directorate, Dr. Bella Bello Bitugu has encouraged corporate Ghana and organizations to emulate the Union Club and invest or sponsor student athletes.

His comments comes after an alumni group called Union Club donated an amount of GHC 7,584 to the University of Ghana Sports Fund to fund scholarships of student-athletes at the University.

Dr. Bello further explained how student-athletes are selected to benefit from the UG-SF and mentioned that, the academics of student-athletes is not the main requirement for selection.

“Some four to five years ago, this thing started, Union Club uses one of our fields, so instead of coming every Saturday to play and the then paying money, why don’t we make it more useful, so you support our students.

So, they pay the school fees of three students as part of the scholarship for student athletes.

And so that is what we have been doing and this is something they have been consistent with and I think it is something that I can encourage all other associations, clubs etc. to emulate”

“they prefer to have footballers. Football players who qualify for the scholarship are the ones who are recommended to us by the coach of the football team and then we send the names to the union club for support.

Sports scholarship does not truly depend on an academic performance, sports scholarship is based on pure talent and sports performance even though for it to happen, you have to meet the minimum requirement of the academic standards of the university.

We don’t use academic performance as the first requirement.”

The UG-SF is an initiative by the University of Ghana Sports Directorate to motivate, support and facilitate admitted student athletes and to attract potential talents to enhance their admission to the University of Ghana.

It is a form of support scheme that the University of Ghana Sport Directorate (UGSD) makes available to exceptional and less privileged student athletes when required and resources are available.

The scholarship is awarded on an annual basis and is available to undergraduate students only, both fresh and continuing students.