Sports in the State of Puntland-Somalia: Not Just Beyond a Physical Exercise

Abstract

Revealing the status of sports in State of Puntland-Somalia, this article presents a new information and insights, in which of its kind has not presented before that reflects the reality and can be generalized to rest of Somalia at all. The study employed qualitative analysis of the FGDs and a semi-structured KII, collection of documented materials and observations that were participated in 39 (30 by FGDs, 9 by interview) sports community aged 25-65 years. Generally, the respondents validated the hypothesis of the study: Sports in Puntland is no just beyond a physical exercise by providing more information about the kinds of sports, sports clubs, their management, capacities; professionalism; governance; financial situation and source of revenue, sports facilities and the legal frameworks that shape their functionalities administratively and politically and other key challenges sports club encounter. The study found that sports in Puntland is administratively and politically failure because sport activities are outright amateurism-oriented rather than professionalism. Moreover, sports science as a disciple is not taught as academic programmes nor as a physical education in schools or as subject mainstreamed in the school curriculum. The study also uncovered that sport in Puntland is suffering for lacking technical capacity in sports management and inadequate and insufficient financial support. It seems that the government has no interest in sports in general because there are no governing documents in place, for example, sports policy, sports act, strategic plan and fundraising strategy. The only sport facility available in Puntland is soccer field owned and administered by the state government ministry in charge of sports. The study also revealed the sports in Puntland is just for physical exercise, and the only game performed in tournament format is a football and it is played by male, and held once in a blue moon.