Offiong Edem, a five-time Olympian and Nigerian table tennis star, has called for a functional table tennis league in the country to enable players to prevail in international competitions.
She said this in an interview with journalists on the sidelines of the ongoing ‘Fourth Offiong Edem Table Tennis Competition’.
The competition is being held in the Canaan City Table Tennis Hall, UJ Esuene Stadium, Calabar.
According to her, it will be difficult for the nation’s table tennis players to compete favourably outside the country without a functional league at home.
Ms Edem is ranked number one in Nigerian female table tennis and 113 in the world.
She is one of the players who will represent Nigeria at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
According to her, the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation has to do something about having a league in the nation like it is in football.
Ms Edem said such a league would further enhance the quality of Nigerian players.
”We just came back from Benghazi in Libya, where the Canaan Table Tennis Club of Calabar represented Nigeria in the African Club Championship, and we lost in the final to an Egyptian team, Petrojet.
”Clubs like Petrojet of Egypt play in an organised league that keeps the players in shape; they don’t need their players to go out; Nigeria needs to borrow a leaf from this.
”We can’t have table tennis clubs in Nigeria with no league where they can play competitively regularly to keep them in shape,” she said.
Speaking further, she said she was grateful to represent Nigeria again at the Olympics in Paris.
The Olympian said the race for qualification was stiff as other players were also improving daily.
She said she believed that the nation would be coming back from the Olympics in Paris with a better result.
She said they would embark on a training tour of Germany for two weeks to help them focus better on the task ahead of the team.