The Lagos State Sports Trust Fund, LSSTF, recently disclosed plans to raise N10 billion that will be invested in sports infrastructure and development across the state.
LSSTF’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Otumba Femi Pedro, stated yesterday that LSSTF would run on public-private participation model to deliver the projects and services, whilst benchmarking global standards.
He added that this will enable the law to set up the Fund providing it with enough autonomy to shield it from Government interferences that could potentially undermine its core values.
According to him, Government funding of the LSSTF is fixed by the enabling law at 10 percent of funds generated by the State Lottery Board and one percent of internally generated revenue, IGR, of local governments in the state.
Pedro continued by stating that the goal of the Board of Trustees is to secure commercial revenues that will limit the proportion of Government’s funding against its total revenue to 10 percent or less.
He further added that the Board has already engaged some entities in corporate Nigeria on how to create value for the private sector participation in the projects and services of the Fund.
“The central core of our business is fund raising for sports development using the PPP model. Our target funders, apart from government, are sports focused organizations, other corporate entities, development institutions, faith-based organizations, high net worth individuals, and the general sport loving members of the public.
“Our collaboration and partnership with these entities could be in form of gifts and donations, sponsorship and partnerships, fund raising events, donation of sporting events, media space, etc, branding and naming rights of sports facilities and event venues, sale of sports memorabilia and many more.
“We are committed to ensuring that no less than 10 million Lagosians participate actively in sports. In addition, we plan to deliver at least 10 infrastructure projects annually; develop 10 athletes each from 10 different sports from grassroots to podium; and to train 10 coaches each in different sports annually.”
