NFA Holds Soccer Classic

By Tosin Omojola - 03.05.2008

In a bid to discover talent who will do the colours of the Nigerian cadet national team, the Golden Eaglets, Nigeria Football Association (NFA) is putting in place a soccer tournament, tagged Soccer Classic.

Information made available to Tribunesports during the week revealed that the classic would take place in six designated centres across the federation, while Abuja would host the grand finale.

According to Mr. Dapo Ajibade, the event’s consultant, six centres picked from each zone in the country will play host to the classic which is expected to begin this month.

The soccer tournament will kick off in Ibadan where the Liberty Stadium, will play host to the entire South West Academies and youth clubs between Friday, May 9 and Sunday, May 11.

The train will then move to Akwa Ibom for the South South event, while Enugu is the centre for the South East and Kwara will host that of North Central.

To host the event in the North West is Kano, while Borno is the centre for North East. The Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, will host the final round of the classic.

According to Mr. Ajibade, the aim of the classic “is to create a platform for youths to meet and interact, to improve football in the grassroots, to create equal opportunity for youths to fight for shirts into the U-17 national team and to help the national team handlers to discover talent.”

He added that the technical crew of the Golden Eaglets, headed by coach Alphonsus Dike would be present at all the centres so as to pick good players for the Eaglets ahead of the FIFA U-17 World Championship which he said Nigeria was hosting to win.