ASSESSMENT OF THE PERCEIVED IMPACT OF CORRUPT PRACTICES ON SPORTS DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

The study examined the perceived impact of corrupt practices on the personnel, facilities/ equipment, management of the sports associations, sports competitions and officiating in the State Sports Councils in Nigeria. The Ex-Post Facto research designed was used for this study. The population for this study cut across coaches, athletes, organizing secretaries and management staff of the State Sports Council in Nigeria. A self-developed    questionnaire was pilot tested and found to be reliable. The questionnaire was thereafter used for this study in selected two states sports council from each of the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. The data collected was statistically analyzed using descriptive statistics of frequency, percentage, means and standard deviation to answer the research questions and One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to test the hypotheses generated for this study. From the result of the data analyzed most of the means scores of the research questions were higher that the acceptable level of 3.5. In addition most of the calculated indices were less than the critical value of 2.62 at df 3,399, that is f calculated < critical values. All the null hypotheses were retained. The researcher therefore concluded that corrupt practices are perceived to have serious impact on sports development in Nigeria. It is recommended that there should be zero-tolerance approach against corruption in sports with adequate and proportionate responses in all potential cases to show that corruption is not welcome in sports in Nigeria. Attention should be focused on how to block every opportunity that will pave way for corrupt practices, so as to have efficient and effective sports development in Nigeria.