The President of Gymnastics Federation of Nigeria (GFN), Prince Kelvin Ehrunmuwse blasted former Technical Director, Anthony Asuquo for putting the federation in bad light.
Prince Ehrunmuwse revealed that Anthony Asuquo was suspended by the board members before he tendered his resignation letter to the sports minister, Sunday Dare.
The President of GFN told www.aclsports.com that the reason for his suspension ranges from insubordination, misleading the public and impersonation.
He said, “Let me set the records straight, Anthony Asuquo is not the Technical Director of Gymnastics Federation of Nigeria but the coaches’ representatives. The reason why he was earlier suspended was because of his attitude and does not have respect for the constitution and rules of the federation.
“The board of the Gymnastics Federation sat down and decided to suspend him; not just me but the former President who is also a board member agreed that this guy keeps making the same mistake and leveling baseless allegations.
“He never respects any of the board members and the way he sends out information to the public is misleading. Asuquo has been doing this for a very long time claiming what he is not, trying to send wrong messages to the public and impersonation outside the country”.
He further said, “Anytime he travels with his personal club to club championships, he claims that Nigeria has won some particular amount of gold medals for the country which is not. You all know how we labored to win a gold medal at the 2019 African Games in Morocco.
“Anthony Asuquo is a business man and I am not against that but what we are telling him is that try to respect the constitution; this is a body and you cannot disrespect where you feed from and he refused to listen after countless warning”.
Prince Ehrunmuwse said the former board member has been peddling false information about him adding that Asuquo is not the only trained gymnastics coach as claimed by him.
He said athletes were selected when they participate at national championships citing the 2018 National Sports Festival as an example.
The President said, “He claimed I took money from gymnasts who went to the 2018 African Youth Games in Algeria and comes up with different types of stories. He tells people that he is the only trained coach in the country but that is not true because we have many of them in various states. The coaches who trained him are still in the system and as you all know that all our athletes come from various states not from clubs”.
“Clubs are money making ventures and there is nothing wrong with that and Anthony Asuquo is not attached to any state (as in working under a state sports council or commission). We have state coaches who give us athlete, if you attended the 2018 National Sports Festival; you saw athletes are they not from states? The reason why we have sports festival is for all these states to bring their athletes to compete and from there we pick the champions”.
“Anthony Asuquo has never produced any champion before; I am not saying what he is doing is wrong but the truth is that he needs to be honest to people and let them now that he is just doing his club and business. He does not need to castigate people or destroy people and giving the people wrong information”.