Sports
Lobi Stars, Others Fail NPFL Club Facility Requirements
Lobi Stars of Makurdi’s Aper Aku stadium, Enugu Rangers’ Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium and Abia Warriors’ Umuahia Township Stadium are among the home grounds nominated by clubs in the Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL) that have failed the 2022/23 Club Licensing Facility Requirements test.
The NPFL has thus asked the clubs to improve conditions of areas where defects were observed by stadium facility inspectors.
The other clubs are Plateau United, Gombe United, Niger Tornadoes, Sunshine Stars, El Kanemi Warriors and Wikki Tourists.
According to the NPFL, to date, Plateau United and Gombe United are yet to submit to the facility inspections and have not communicated any reasons for their failure to do so.
Lobi Stars, Abia Warriors, Rangers, Wikki Tourists, Niger Tornadoes, Sunshine Stars and El-kanemi Warriors are the clubs that have been notified that their facility falls short of the Club Licensing requirements.
Worst hit, however, are Lobi Stars, Abia Warriors and Niger Tornadoes, which, according to the inspectors in separate reports, require serious and extensive makeover works to meet the required minimum standards for approval.
Majority of the facilities at the seven grounds nominated by the clubs were found not to be suitable and these range from poor lighting, bad playing turfs, unsuitable conveniences for fans in the general area and obsolete scoreboards. Also found below standards are the changing rooms for players and match officials, medical rooms, meeting rooms and water supply.
Other defects in the case of Lobi Stars, Abia Warriors, Niger Tornadoes and Sunshine Stars are poor playing pitches, defective scoreboards and poor sanitary conditions around and inside the stadium.
Lobi Stars were told that “the playing pitch, which is synthetic, was found not to be in ideal condition with lots of bad segments needing proper attention or reinforcement.
“The Aper Aku Stadium lacks a readily available alternate power source, vide a generator. Water supply is not sufficient in the stadium and its environs and the overhead tank in the stadium needs urgent attention as the tank can no longer serve its purpose.”
In Abia Warriors’ case, the report noted: “The field of play at the stadium is still undergoing a replacement. There are no functional floodlights and the general lighting in the stadium is poor. There is no electronic scoreboard and the manual scoreboard available is in dire condition.
The Sports Writers Association of Nigeria ( SWAN) Rivers State Chapter has set up five standing working committees on Tuesday, in its general congress.
At the playoff held at the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, Onikan, the team of Canice Abua, Michael Emmanuel, Daniel Adeleye, and Abubakar Yusuf was majestic as they restored Nigeria’s hope in a sport that once gave the country so much joy.
Speaking after the final game, Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF) President, Victor Ochei, said the Davis Cup feat is the stepping stone to better days in the sport, adding that the federation has set up programmes that will help the budding talents across the country play at the same level as their counterparts in other tennis-developed countries.
Ochei said: “The whole aim of having this new board is to lift the sport to the level we used to be. I tell you, tennis is taking a new shape in Nigeria. We are putting everything and anything to make that work happen.”
Ochei said that the NTF has looked at sponsorships and how to get the emerging players compete at the same level with their peers elsewhere, adding that the federation is working on organising local competitions and helping the players to compete in international championships.
“We believe that with what we are doing now, sponsors will come to us to organise new competitions. But beyond that, there’s a strategic growth development plan, a 10-year development plan, which the board is working on.
“The programme will ensure that we catch them young. This is because we believe that to create champions, we must start grooming them early. The champions you are seeing today were those groomed yesterday.”
“The process of building new champions will include building the coaches, the players, the infrastructure and sensitising the parents so that we can start catching them as young as age five to six.
“By the time that we groom them through 10 years of training, at age 15, 16, you will see fantastic professional players.”
To achieve the federation’s plans, Ochei admits that the NTF needs a lot of investment, adding that the board is working at realising the funds quietly and tenaciously.
The NTF president acknowledged the contributions of former international stars like Nduka Odizor and Sadiq Abdullahi to the bid to rejuvenate Nigerian tennis, adding that NTF is open to collaborating with former players who know what it takes to play at the highest level of the sport.
He said, “Nduka Odizor is around as one of our VIP personalities. He has been psyching up the boys in the battle with Uzbekistan. He will not enter the court to play, but his mere presence is enough motivation to the boys, who will want to be like him in the future.
“You see, the type of support the Odizors, the Imonities and the Abdullahis got in their time is no longer there, but we are revamping it with the support of our stakeholders in the Diaspora.
“It will appear to take us some time, but I can tell you that the Diaspora support is massive.”
In its bid to get good results in this year’s Commonwealth Games, the National Sports Commission (NSC) has disbursed N200 million as training grants to 26 athletes.
The 2026 Commonwealth Games will be held in Glasgow, Scotland.
The NSC stated that the grants were disbursed through its Elite and Podium Board, noting that N200 million was allocated to select top-performing athletes.
The beneficiaries are both foreign-based and home-based, the NSC said, adding that it will cater for their training and preparation expenses.
According to the NSC, the recipients span several sports, including athletics, wrestling, weightlifting, and para-sports, in line with the Commission’s mandate to prioritise athletes’ welfare and high-performance development.
The Commission added that the disbursement follows the establishment of the Elite and Podium Board, created to implement a scientific and institutionalised support system aimed at sustaining peak performances by Nigerian athletes at major international competitions.
NSC Director General, Bukola Olopade, said the Commission, under the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was established to restore confidence and provide renewed hope for Nigerian sportsmen and women by placing strong emphasis on athlete welfare.
“The training grants disbursed to 26 athletes across different sports followed a careful and professional selection process by the Yusuf Ali-led Elite and Podium Board. This is our way of reassuring our athletes that their welfare remains our utmost priority,” he said.
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