The Federal Executive Council has approved the National Sports Investment Policy, NSIP 2022-2026 to attract investments from the private sector into the country’s sports.
The approval followed a memo presented by the Ministry of Sports and Youth Development to the Council’s meeting on Wednesday, presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Minister of Sports and Youth Development, Sunday Dare, who briefed State House correspondents after the meeting, said the policy has as its core the building of business model into Nigeria’s sports development.
“This approval brings to a final closure the idea or the principal of sports as business, which opens the door to private investments driven by incentives and also investments from the private sector.
“The approval obtained today will also look at sports code of governance regulations as it relates to our sporting federations to create a sports governance structure as we have in other sectors that will be attractive to private sector.
“This code of governance will attract obligations like accountability, which are critical to investor confidence and also sector clarity. The approval also covered incentives for private investments in sports development.”
Tax incentives
Dare said that the approved NSIP 2022-2026 provides for proposed tax and fiscal incentives needed to drive sports as business as well as to attract the much needed investments from the private sector.
“The approval also covers the ability of the sports ministry to drive application of a medley of funding and financing approaches to develop our infrastructure and to develop our sports from ROT (Renovate, Operate and Transfer) to BOT (Build, Operate and Transfer) and to the Integrated National Financial Framework (INFF) and also the Nigeria Integrated Infrastructure Masterplan.
“All of these have been approved as approaches you can employ to boost sports as business. Most importantly, the triggers of sports as business, which are infrastructural development, investment from private and public sectors and also incentives that were presented to Council were all approved.”
According to Dare, the approval signals a new dawn for sports development in Nigeria.
“In this policy, there is something for the athletes; in this policy there is something for the government; in this policy there is something for the mass of sports-loving Nigerians; and in this policy, there is something for our youth population because it has a fully developed sports value chain into which most of youths can plug in and also investors can plug in,” the Minister stated.
