Masai Ujiri Quotes

Bringing more large sporting events to Africa would help the continent develop sports policies and at the same time optimize its peoples' chances of achieving competitive success.

We've got to have a radical rethink of the way the sport is funded to help the young players develop.

What we have seen is that sports is definitely developing in India. I can see a lot of positive things happening in India. It may take a bit more time, but with proper guidance and people having passion for sports, I don't think we are far away from becoming a good sporting nation.

I think we have very good facilities for the youth in Holland. We have very good youth coaches and I think that is some of the reasons that always Holland has very good football players.

The only people who can fix Africa are talented young Africans. By unlocking and nurturing their creative potential, we can create a step change in Africa's future.

Both the velodrome and the Commonwealth swimming pool are open to the public and are frequently used by local schools and the local community. Over the last six years young people have been inspired to take up swimming and cycling more seriously; some of them are now coming through as Olympic champions or hopefuls.

My dream is to see India as a nation of well-looked-after and respected sportspeople in all fields.

For somebody like me, who has trained barefoot in a small village in Odisha, I know training without proper facilities can be extremely difficult. Having experienced it all, I would like to give back to my community by creating a running academy for children.

I am dreaming that Italy can return to having lots of important talent. We need to grow our young players.

I would say the youth systems in Germany have impressed me the most and how they grow their youth players into full professionals.

I'm more of a hands-on person. I like working with young people from the standpoint of providing support for the grassroots programs. State, national and Olympic champions begin at a grassroots level.

Companies that support sports developmental programs in our communities should also be applauded.

My policy was just to give good things for sports in my region.

Cricket is a self-sustaining industry; but corporates need to realise that other sports don't have that luxury. This is the time when they need to invest, and keep the faith. Every sport has the potential to create world champions. Imagine India as a country full of world champions. Why imagine? Let's just make it happen.

Let's face it. There is no setup in Pakistan to train and groom young players at the grassroots level in different sports. Those of us who did make a name for ourselves and became champions did it with our own initiative - there was no academy to back us till we reached a certain level on our own.

The whole of our national sport is not doing very well.

I have formed the Mahendra Singh Dhoni Charitable Trust which organises cricket tournaments in Jharkhand to identify promising cricketers so that we can help groom them, either in India or abroad.

Not much is done to promote non-cricket sports in India. There is a lot of talk about how sports needs to reach the grassroots and how it should be introduced as a subject in school, but nothing has been done to that effect.

It's every manager's dream, I suppose, to build a team by coaching young players of 15 to 17. That's why I started a youth scheme.

I still feel that in India we look upon sports as a recreational activity - which it is - but people have to understand that there is a career in sports. It's not just necessary to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer, as most of us Indians appear to think that our children should grow up to be.

It is going to be difficult for the West Indies to get back to the top, but we got to start somewhere, and if playing young players is the way we have decided to go, these young players must be given the chance to mature and develop and not be discarded at an early age.

Mike Brown wanted to hire me to work with LeBron in player development.

Politicians should talk about sportspersons and sports, and it should surely be in the agenda when they go out asking for votes.

While there are many good courts in the country, we need to have good coaches for more players to come up. Not everyone can go to Gopichand Academy, and everyone cannot afford international tournaments.

I want to create as many opportunities as possible for people inclined towards sports.