Sports
Julius Berger To Resuscitate Abuja Stadium Pitch
Construction giants Julius Berger, has offered to resuscitate the playing turf of the National Stadium, Abuja ahead of the crucial 2012 African Cup of Nations qualifying match between the Super Eagles of Nigeria and Guinea’s Syli Stars on October 8.
Speaking during a visit by top officials of the Nigeria Football Federation last week, the Managing Director of Julius Berger, Mr Wolfgang Goetsch, said his company was committed to bringing the pitch back to life for the sake of the Super Eagles and the Nigeria Football Federation.
“We are ready to work on the pitch to ensure that the Super Eagles have a good surface to train and play a good match, and also because we like the efforts that the present Nigeria Football Federation NFF administration is putting in order to ensure that Nigeria is up there among the best football-playing nations of the world,” Goetsch said.
The construction company has already started the preliminary work and expect to finish work before the Super Eagles commence their training sessions for the big match on October 3.
Julius Berger built the Abuja Stadium and were in charge of maintaining the facility, but were forced to withdraw their services due to unpaid debts of N5million from the National Sports Commission.
Nigeria women’s U-17 national team, the Flamingos, have been drawn alongside Canada, France, and Samoa in Group D of the 2025 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup, set to hold in Morocco later this year, TideSports reports.
The draws, which took place at the Mohammed VI Football Academy in the capital city of Rabat on Wednesday, saw the Flamingos pitted against North American side Canada, European powerhouse France and debutants Samoa, ahead of the tournament scheduled to run from October 17 to November 8, with all matches set to be played in Rabat.
Nigeria will be making her eighth appearance at the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in history.
The other groups for the tournament will see the hosts Morocco take on Brazil, Italy and Costa Rica in Group A, with defending champions Korea DPR locking horns with Mexico, Cameroon, and the Netherlands in Group B.
Meanwhile, Group C will feature the United States of America, Ecuador, China and Norway, while Group E has Spain, Colombia, Korea Republic and Ivory Coast.
Rounding off the tournament is Group F, which has Japan who are the all-time top scorers in the competition’s history with 125 goals across nine editions, while Oceania’s representatives New Zealand, Zambia and South American upstarts Paraguay are included.
The tournament will be the first in history to feature 24 countries, and it is also the first edition of the global showpiece to be held on the African continent. The revamped tournament will see Morocco host the next five editions of the cadet event, beginning from this year and continuing annually until 2029.
The opening fixture will be contested between the hosts Morocco and Brazil on October 17. As usual with 24-team tournaments, the top two countries from each of the six groups will advance to the round-of-16, as well as the four best third-placed nations.
According to Odaudu, the team’s defensive problems were a major concern after finishing the Kalahari Conference with two losses to Al Ittihad Alexandria.
To address this issue, the team has brought in Ahmed Doumbia, a defensive-minded player from the French League and Chingka Garba a Nigerian who plays in Rwanda.
“We wanted to address that defensive problems, so we wanted to bring someone who will address that issue,” Odaudu said.
“We needed to address the deficiency in defence.
“Of course, Ahmed plays in the French League. He is very defensive-minded and, of course, he is a beast on the offence. We needed someone to assist Kelvin Amayo in defensive duties in the backcourt, so we brought Doumbia here.”
Preparation has been all plain sailing for Odaudu, with Nigeria forward Chingka joining the fold to stack up the quality of the team.
Also, we brought in another player, Odaudu said.
“We were almost playing Peter Olisemeka to the ground. We needed someone who could do that, too that was why we brought in Garba Chingka.”
After closing out their Kalahari Conference campaign with four wins, Odaudu wasn’t satisfied with the team’s performance and had suggested they had work to do before the playoffs in South Africa.
“We need to up the ante to compete in South Africa. I see the amount of work we have to put in for us to be better in South Africa. We have the time to do all that and hopefully, we will come out better,” the coach said in April.
The KingsMen will face US Monastir in the seeding game on Saturday, June 7, a side they had played four times, winning two and losing the other two fixtures.
Rivers Hoopers are making their third appearance at the 2025 Basketball Africa League.
They featured in the inaugural season held in 2021 and last season’s edition, where they finished third to set a Nigerian record.
Azinge said the 10km event which is expected to hold on October 5, 2025 will mark his one anniversary as the 14th Asagba of Asaba.
He said, “The race is open to amateur runners, local and international elites runners and fun runners.
“This is part of the activities to mark my one anniversary. we believe that with sports we can rebrand Asaba to the world.
There is no better way of rebranding Asaba, other than sports. We looked forward to make it annual event. For this first edition, we are expecting 40, athletes.”
“You can imagine when 40,000 athletes enter Asaba, it’s anticipated that the local economy will benefit from the influx of competitors, scouts and spectators to Asaba for the race.”
He said the event will offer a venue for networking, exposure and cross-cultural exchange.
The monarch called for sponsorship from individuals and corporate organizations, noting that additional 5km road walk would be held same day to promote fitness and health.
The Chairman Sports Promotion Committee, Wing Commander, Peter Iweze (Rtd). commended the monarch for the initiative to rebrand Asaba through sports.
In his remarks, the event’s consultant and CEO Lexicon, Mr Moses Nwanze disclosed that cash prizes would be given to both male and female winners in different categories for local athletes and Asaba indigenous winners while foreign athletes will go with USD 9,000.
He said the 10km race will start from Stephen Keshi Stadium, urging interested participants to register for free.
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