Sports
2019 Will Be Eventful For Handball, Chairman Assures
The Chairperson of Lagos State Handball Association (LSHA), Adeola Opeifa, on Wednesday assured that activities would be organised to make 2019 an eventful year for handball in the state.
Opeifa told newsmen in Lagos that the association intended to surpass its previous records and ensure that the sport was thoroughly developed at the grass roots.
“We have our annual events, which have been instrumental to the development of handball in Lagos, because most of them are purely grass roots competitions for age grade categories.
“This year, we have come up with measures to spread the scope of activities by encouraging schools to give the sport its needed place of pride in order to attract more players.
“Our technical officials will be visiting more schools to supervise their training activities and do the needful as a way of carrying them along with the ethics and competition rules,” she said.
Opeifa urged schools across the state to identity with educational districts in Lagos to enable them have information on the association’s programmes so as to have the opportunity to participate.
She said his association would also increase its sponsorship drive in order to have the needed support to offer necessary assistance and make playing environment suitable for upcoming schools.
“As the parent body of handball in Lagos, we seek to live up to expectations, but it takes collective efforts and for every sector to play their part well for us to achieve our vision for the year.
“We use the educational district as a medium to reach schools on the development of our activities and it is because of the large number of schools and teams in Lagos.
“The plan is to extend our sponsorship drive so that we will have more individuals, corporate bodies and fans to assist us in achieving good mileage for our programmes,”she said.
Opeifa, however, assured that the body would remain committed to initiatives that would help to discover more budding athletes and make the association stand tall among others in the country.
Iwobi spoke to Tidesports source ahead of Nigeria’s crunch playoff semi-final against Gabon on Thursday, November 13, in Rabat, Morocco.
The 28-year-old was reacting to Nigeria’s shaky World Cup qualifying campaign that saw the Eagles finish second in Group C behind South Africa’s Bafana Bafana.
“We’ve managed to rescue ourselves from the dead,” Iwobi told Tidesports source.
We know we have the players and the abilities to compete against any other country in the world.”
The Fulham star pointed to Nigeria’s star power, highlighting African Footballer of the Year winners Ademola Lookman and Victor Osimhen as proof of the squad’s quality.
“We have last year’s African best player (Ademola Lookman), the year before that (Victor Osimhen),” he said.
“It’ll be a shame if we don’t make it, but we have a lot of confidence. We just have to prove it to ourselves.”
Nigeria’s path to the United States, Canada and Mexico has been turbulent, with two coaches departing during the early stages of qualifying before Éric Chelle steadied the ship to steer the Super Eagles into November’s CAF playoffs.
Four nations from the continent – Nigeria, Cameroon, DR Congo and Gabon – will vie for a solitary spot to compete in next March’s inter-confederation playoffs, with a view to joining the already nine qualified African nations at the Finals.
It would mark Iwobi’s second appearance at the World Cup Finals and the Super Eagles’ first since the 2018 edition of the competition.
Back then, Iwobi featured in all three games as Nigeria was knocked out in the group stage.
The Chief Executive Officer(CEO) and Publisher of the Atlantic Bell Online medium, Mr. Celestine Ogolo has advised sports writers in Nigeria to diversify in sports writing and not to concentrate on football reporting alone.
The Deputy National President of Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) Mr. Bonny Nyong has expressed commitment to support sports development and move SWAN forward.