Former Super Eagles and English Premier League football star, Sam Sodje, has strongly condemned the prevalence of paedophilia among youth coaches in Delta State and other parts of Nigeria. Over the weekend, Sodje expressed his deep concern about the issue, highlighting that coaches entrusted with young children are abusing their positions, causing significant harm to the children and society.
Sodje, who divides his time between London and Delta State, where he actively engages in youth empowerment through sports, emphasized the critical role of sports in lifting millions out of poverty. He noted that the current economic difficulties in Nigeria have led many parents to encourage their children to participate in sports as a means to escape poverty. However, in their haste, parents often fail to conduct proper background checks on the so-called youth coaches.
“Many of these so-called youth coaches have questionable characters and their primary motive is to sexually abuse these children, not to provide genuine coaching,” Sodje stated. He has encountered numerous stories of such abuses during his work promoting his initiative, “Life After Sports,” across Delta State and Nigeria.
Sodje is not only condemning these acts but also calling for urgent action to name, shame, prosecute, and punish the offending coaches, similar to how paedophiles are treated in Europe and America. He urges parents to perform thorough background checks on coaches through top officials of various sports associations to ensure their children do not fall prey to these unscrupulous individuals.