Youth Dropping Out Of School To Pursue Wrestling

A wrestling bonanza is generating public unease in Senegal as large pots of prize money and the sport’s soaring popularity is encouraging a growing number of boys to drop out of school to seek stardom in the arena.
 
Blanket media coverage and the chance for victors to escape poverty by earning up to $300,000 per contest has fired up the passion for the sport to dizzying levels, with the country’s grandees now joining the spectator.

Boys are leaving school in the fifth or sixth grade with others turning their back on low-paid vocations as mechanics, tailors, welders, masons, and carpenters to jump on the wrestling bandwagon.

“Almost all wrestlers have abandoned their original jobs to enter the arena,” said Oumar Diarra, secretary-general of the national sportswriters’ association.

At least 8,000 unemployed and disadvantaged boys registered with the CNG, the governing body of wrestling in the country. 

They see the sport as a potential route to success, according to Thierno Ka, the organisation’s deputy chairman.
“The pursuit of money trumps all other motives for their association with the sport,” Ka said.
ALJAZEERA