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.
England captain Harry Kane netted a hat-trick to guide Bayern Munich to an impressive victory against Stuttgart.
Kane’s goals, plus one from Kingsley Coman, helped Bayern end a three-game winless run in all competitions.
They faced a tough task against a Stuttgart side who sat back and limited their chances, leading Vincent Kompany’s side to enter the break frustrated and with the deadlock unbroken.
Bayern eventually found a way past Stuttgart’s steely defence when Kane drilled a low effort into the bottom corner from around 30 yards out after Joshua Kimmich overturned possession.
Former Nigeria goalkeeper, Dosu Joseph, is full of thanks to God after he miraculously survived another life-threatening automobile accident recent at Kara, along the Lagos-Ibadan Express Way, where a heavy-duty truck ran into his SUV.
Narrating his ordeal, the 51-year-old, who guided Nigeria to gold in the Men’s Football Tournament of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, broke the news in a statement on his social media handles on Friday.
“To God be the glory, another death escaped by Grace and Mercy of God. Me and my friend SM were at Enyo Filling Station after Ojodu Berger bus stop to get fuel on Wednesday, October 2, 2024, around 6 p.m. when this MACK truck fully loaded with iron, with registration number LND 470 XX, left the road and crushed my car beyond repairs. Thank God for life,” he stated.
This is the second time the soft-spoken club proprietor will cheat death by a whisker, having been involved in an accident in 1997 that ended his career at 23 and left his spinal cord in bad shape.
He helped Julius Berger win the Nigeria FA Cup in November 1997 shortly a memorable Olympic outing by keeping a clean sheet in the finals against Katsina United. The following year, he was involved in the auto along Ikorodu Road, Lagos, which not only cut his career short but also left him almost paralysed, ending his spell at Serie A club Reggiana.
The former Nigeria international, who also kept goal for Julius Berger FC, said the case has been reported to Isheri Police Station, Ogun State, where the driver is currently detained and the truck also seized.
According to him, the owner of the truck said he can’t fix the badly damaged SUV until after a year.
Ex – Super Eagles of Nigeria, Okwuchukwu Waobikeze has observed that sports development in Nigeria is going down.
According to him, grassroots sports is very important, without it, the administrators cannot get it right. So everybody should key into grassroots sports development, he said.
Waobikeze said this last Wednesday in an interview with sports journalists shortly after the Port Harcourt All Stars Independence football festival (OCTOBERFEST) at the Port Harcourt club, Rivers State.
He explained that for sports administrators to get it right, grassroots development is key. “They should be organising competition at the grassroots level to fish out the young ones for different sporting activities.
“Grassroots sports is very important so the administrators have to go back to the grassroots.
” Sports Development in Nigeria is going down we need to go back to the basics.
“Look at the just concluded Paris Olympics, Nigeria did not win any medal.
” Our football team did not even qualify for the Olympics. We are going down.
” If they should go back to the grassroots, they will get young ones in the games and talents will be developed.
” I started from school games, to youth games before playing for the national team. Now everybody wants to fly board to play professional football and a lot do not know the basics of the game.
” A lot of people did not know the little things about the game, they just want to play. It is not done so,” Waobikeze stated.
Kiadum Edookor