HRH Oba Moroof Oyekunle Atanda Amodu Tijani Oluwa 111, Oba of Iwa and Apapa Kingdom who marked his 66th birthday with an under 15 youth Football tournament has thanked the Ajeromi Sports Council, the organizers of the football tournament. He explained that the essence of the under 15 tournament is to catch them young.
At the kick-off, the Kabiyesi who was a retired accredited referee admonished the young players to be good in their studies.
“Take your learning very seriously, I don’t want you to be a nuisance, play the ball professionally and don’t injure yourselves”, he said.
The DG of Ajeromi Sports Council, MacAnthony Anelechukwu in a brief touchline chat expressed satisfaction on the turnout: “The turnout is massive and impressive and Kabiyesi’s presence added panache to what we are seeing here today.
“The players are giving their best especially turning out in their numbers, which is commendable.I am particularly impressed when somebody on the sideline said, all the players are almost of the same height and I’m impressed because the screening process was thorough and they came with their birth certificates. We identified and fished out some that came with fake birth certificates and we even deployed facial observation.
“Iam glad that all the teams are giving good accounts of themselves and I think no team is a pushover in this tournament”, he stated.
The secretary of Players Union, Austin Popo, praised the gesture of the Royal Father as a step in right direction.
Popo has this to say about the young footballers, “Ajegunle has always been a traditional enclave for sportsmen, not just football and what we are seeing here is not different.
“We’ve expectations and we have a lot of big sports names that have come out of this place. To me, this is just a continuation of what has been happening before and its also good that they’re keeping the tempo and hopefully by what we are seeing today, they would be the future stars of tomorrow.
“That is why if we don’t plant a seed, it cannot grow to become a tree tomorrow”.
Austin Popo who was a special guest used the occasion to advise coaches and sports managers on the need to re- evaluate the way players are trained.
” I’ve discovered that outside football, a lot of them don’t have what it takes to go beyond 90 minutes from the pitch and it is very important that we must be able to engage every aspect of their spiritual, physical and intellectual aspects because whatever you do at this level is important”, Popo noted.
The Director General of Ajeromi Sports Council Anelechukwu said that the essence of the tournament is truly to catch them young .
“Yes , what more can I say, this is under 15 tournament and we have one or two that are 10 years – old and that’s really an age to catch the young talents and the next phase will be the under 13 tournament.
We cannot have a tournament for under 10 but we are also doing a summer camp for ages 10-15.
“These are the right age and the facility too. This is one of the reasons why Nathaniel Idewu facility was built for young talents and we ‘ve been exploiting that,” he said.
“We have four grassroots academies that train their kids here and they do not pay for any facility . You can see the kids are happy at the good playing turf and I assure you, if these ones go outside, they will make great impacts . If they continue like this, at anytime they travel out , certainly, they will play good football.
“I can beat my chest to tell you that this is one of the best surfaces that we have in Nigeria”, the DG said.
On his achievements so far, as Director General, Ajeromi Sports Council, Macanthony Anene, said; his achievements are there for anybody to see.
“I am not one that blows his trumpets, I and my team have done very well for even the blind to see over the past five years of our tenure.
“Going forward, I have started praying for my successor because I have three more years on the seat. However, if the one to take over from me do not have the agility, ability and time to dedicate on the job, it will affect the progress of the council.
“The position also requires passion and strenghth to achieve records and because of all these , we’ve won laurels. In basket ball, Ajegunle is number one in Nigeria, we are Millo Basket ball Champions back to back at the state and national level. From our grassroots team, we’ve seen a lot of players travel out from Ajegunle and they didn’t return as they continued playing their games out there.
“We’ve seen Super Eagles Stars visit us here in Ajegunle. We see Yemi Idewu donating a massive facility like Maracana stadium”.
Onozimare Stanley, coach of Bright Future Academy who played the first game expressed joy about the tournament because he believes the essence of the tournament is to develop the young boys to enable them understand the basics of the game of football. Not necessarily to winning at all cost, but to enable them to learn and understand the game, football.
“From the first game, you can see they’re learning truly and the most important is to let them know the basics of football to enable them improve on their games. I have already noticed some of their weakpoints and I am confident by the grace of God that after their second game, there will be lots of improvements in their play and before the end of the tournament, they will get their tops.
” I already have identified about four good players like my captain, No 10 and central defender”, he explained..
