President of the ECOWAS Commission H E Kadre Desire Ouedraogo has commended the ECOWAS Staff Club whose members won four trophies as well as individual medals at the just concluded end of the year games.

The dual sporting tournaments-Diplomatic Games and May Day which saw the female team coming tops, featured competitions in Football, Lawn Tennis, Badminton, Scrabble, Table Tennis, Monopoly as well as Egg, Water and Sac races. The ECOWAS teams A and B proved gallant competitors against opponents from the international and local scenes and also from sister institutions-The Parliament and the Community Court of Justice.

At the presentation of trophies ceremony which took place at the ECOWAS Commission headquarters in Abuja on the 19^th of June 2015, an elated president of the Commission Kadre Desire Ouedraogo charged the ECOWAS Sports Club not to relent in its efforts to bring more laurels to the Community.

The president who was flanked by the ECOWAS Commissioner for Human Resources Joao Jose Silva Monteiro, said Management of the Commission would henceforth get more involved in the Community-organized sporting activities stressing that this will “Send strong signals to staff as to the importance of sporting activities for our health and wellbeing”

Maintaining that the Commission would now be open to any initiative brought forward by the Sports Club, the president spoke further: “This is a good development for ECOWAS as all the world is now aware that we have champions here. What the sports men and women are doing is of tremendous importance as it reminds ECOWAS staff that we are one family. Sports is a factor of good health as medical bill will lessen if we all train and keep fit. I urge you to maintain this trophy haul for the Community”

According to president Ouedraogo, the sporting activities of ECOWAS would now be given full management support and moved from the realm of voluntary recreation to the highest official level.

The games brought together the teams and competitors from diplomatic community (embassies and international institutions) in Nigeria. It also featured globally acclaimed footballer George Opong Weah of Liberia (who played for the ECOWAS football team). Guest institutions like ECOBANK and countries such as Sao Tome and Principe participated.

Presenting the trophies to the Commission president in company of team captains, health instructors and individual trophy winners, Coordinator of the Sports Club and Technical Assistant of the Commission’s Community Computer Center (CCC) Kouassi Aime Ayissou pledged continuous improvement on the success recorded so far by the ECOWAS teams.

“What the club needs is support. If the management visits the sports teams regularly, we would be further motivated and more staff would be interested, this will lead to a win, win situation”

He added.