Sports

Quest For Sporting Excellence, Reason For Our support to AFN, Talented Athletes-CEO PremiumTrust Bank

Published

3 months ago

August 6, 2024

The Chief Executive Officer of PremiumTrust Bank, Mr. Emmanuel Efe Emefienim has identified the thirsty and quest for sporting excellence in the country as the reason why the bank is committed and giving it’s support to Athletic Federation of Nigeria AFN and many talented athletes.

Speaking in Paris, the CEO who is currently at ongoing Paris 2024 Olympics in France alongside sports stakeholders in support of Team Nigeria expressed that, the bank’s unwavering support for Nigeria’s athletes has serves as a beacon of hope, inspiring youths, and aspiring sportsmen to pursue their sporting dream

According to him, we the sponsors to the athletic Federation of Nigeria, we had 3 years sponsorship arrangement with them, which has been on since 2022.

“Basically it’s all about providing the needed support for AFN to help the athletes prepare them for competitions and also ake them contribute immensely to our success in international outing.

“We sees it as a platform to empower to ensuring that they get the best of training, to get the best of support and to be well prepared for games like this, that why we extended that to signing two of them as brand ambassadors Tobi Amusan and Ese Brume.

“And we are very hopeful that in these Olympics, they’ll come back home with medals.
“You know, we’ve provided funds for their training programs, We monitored, how they felt. So that is exactly what we done for athletics Federation of Nigeria in the past two to three years.

“These athletes or sport men and women they need money for their training, they need to prepare themselves for competitions.

“They need to look at the people they compete with, So we want to see how we provide that platform so that our athletes, our sportsmen and women would be able to compete at the highest level. It’s so important so they can prepare themselves outside what the government is able to provide for them.

“And it has really worked for Tobi Amusan, It has worked for Ese Brume you can see that in preparing for these games, they’ve not been under serious pressure. We’ve been able to provide you know, that platform for them. And now, we hope to do more for many Nigerians.”

When asked the wort of the deal with AFN, for the sponsorship? He replied: “the sum of 100 million spread over three years which is what we’ve been consistent.”

However, CEO is optimistic that Team Nigeria at the ongoing 2024 Olympics will win medal.

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Sports

Fresh Air, As Dikko Resumes As NSC Chairman, Unveils 3-Pillar For Sports Growth

Published

11 hours ago

October 30, 2024

The Gleamer

Joel Ajayi

The newly appointed Chairman of National Sports Commision Malam Shehu Dikko on Wednesday officially assumed office unveiled 3 Pillars to growth sport sector.

Just last week President Bola Ahmed Tinubu appointed Shehu Dikko as Chairman of the National Sports Commission.

Speaking shortly in Abuja after outgoing Minister of Sports Senator John Enoh officially handed over the affairs of the Country’s Sports to him in a brief ceremony in Abuja.

He expressed that the Country’s journey towards a sustainable Sports Economy has begun.

According to him, history has a way of coming full circle because in 2008 I was a consultant to the House of Representatives and was responsible for the drafting of the National Sports Commission Bill and about 16 years down the line i have here with the assignment to implement the work I assisted to put together”.

“The objective of Mr President is to harness the full potentials of the Sports Economy in Nigeria”.

“And we have to first change our mindset from the fixation of just competitions and winning medals and come back and fix our Domestic Sports Development”.

“When we set the foundation right the results and the winning of medals will naturally come in a sustainable manner and that should be the new mindset”.

“We cannot continue to run in cycles so we need to have a different approach from day one because in my view and indeed the view of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, competitions is what we call “Consumption” because we just take scarce resources and burn out abroad without any impact on the domestic sports development and the Nigerian Economy.

“But we have to go back to “Production” which is deliberate Sports Development, where we set the structure right, set the framework and put together good parameters to have a sustainable Sports Development which will naturally give us a solid Sports Economy and indeed guaranteed competitive participation at all competitions and medals.

“This is the reason why our administration will be focus on three Pillars including running Sports as a National Asset, that is entitled to special privileges, regulations and concessions to drive growth and development to open its potentials to be a key driver of the economy across all sectors, a vehicle for achieving national cohesion and projection of the positive and unique attributes of our culture and national identity “.

” We have to also work on Legislations and Regulations so as to set the framework to enable the Industry to grow effectively like what happened in the communications industry some years back”.

” The other Pillar is investing in purposeful world class infrastructures that will provide an enabling environment for Growth. These infrastructures must be deliberate with maintenance culture and span from world class infrastructure for professional sports to community infrastructure to drive grassroots sports and mass participation across the country.

” The thinking of Mr President is that , after having some of all these in place we should be able to measure the Country’s Sports by its contribution to the nation’s GDP by at least three percent and the number of jobs sports and its value chain are providing in country in the next four to five years and indeed our competitiveness across all competitions and tournaments.

Thus it’s a fantastic decision for Mr. President to approve the return of the National Sports Comission to drive the process and objectives in line to the best international practices and standards devoid of any beureucratic bottlenecks but absolute professionalism.”

In his remark, the outgoing Sportst Minister Senator John Enoh expressed: “For me it’s farewell, it’s bye bye and for mallam shehu Dikko it’s welcome that is what life is all about, there is time for everything.

He however thumbed president Tinubu for scrapping Sports Ministry and bring back the NSC to enable sports to grow in the country, saying that the decision remain a great positive that will grow Sports.

On his remark, the most senior staff of the ministry, Director of Medicine Paul Onyedo pledged staff support to work with incoming Chairman to the best of their ability. “We are ready to give our best.”

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