Changes may be happening in sports nationwide with the ongoing review of the Fiji National Sports Commission Act prompting the powers that be to re-look how things have been running.
Ministry of Youth and Sports permanent secretary Ratu Meli Nacuva shared the vision they have for all sports in the country.
His vision goes in line with the call of former Fiji 7s start Isake Katonibau who said that the Fiji Rugby Union should support free education for former players.
Nacuva said ‘Eyes’ raised a good point that has the potential to be embedded into the ministry’s pillars.
“The whole purpose is to have an over-arching architecture that is up there to govern every single sport. In there we will have these pillars including education, strength and condition and from there we put in strategies.
“Every sporting organisation has to align to that, if not, we will not fund you, I’m not saying we are holding them a carrot or stick but we will provide you extra support if you do this for your players.
“For example, let’s say the Fiji Rugby Union. If you want us to pay for your coach or something like that then perhaps you need to have these structures in place, that your players are required to enrol online for two short courses every single time they get contracted to the Flying Fijians.
“It doesn’t have to be a diploma or something, short courses are available and all you need to do is to start breaking that barrier. Isake has got a point.
“It is (achievable), it’s something that I am doing in my ministry for my staff,” Nacuva shared.
Nacuva said that this is a different era and sports in Fiji needs to align itself with what the ‘online’ platform has to offer.
This is something that his ministry is utilising through online short course programs.
“You can see now there is a lot of finger-pointing, it’s the responsibility of the players, you made a choice to either play rugby or have an education but why can’t you do both.
“We are in a very different era now; we had a zoom for the Ministry of Youth and Sports with an organisation called Coursera- a platform that hosts short courses by the major universities in Yale, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Harvard so I am encouraging my staff that I am going to pay and all they have to do is go online, do their studies, get a short course like a certificate in business analysis.”
Fiji National Sports Commission chief executive Peter Mazey stated last week that they are also looking at a framework for life after sport.
