….To be ready in six to eight weeks

Joel Ajayi
A private company known as Afrikings Homes Limited on Thursday has adopted the training pitch 1 of  Moshood Abiola Stadium.

The adoption follows the success story recorded by the Adoption of Moshood Abiola Stadium Mainbowl pitch by Aliko Dangote. 

Afrikings Homes adoption involves re-grassing of the pitch by planting nursery seeds  and maintenance of the pitch for two years.

Speaking at the official hand over of the Practicing Pitch, the Minister of Youth and Sports Development Sunday Dare recounted the gain of initiative “adopt an athlete and pitches” that is working very well for growth and Development of sports in Nigeria.

Minister heaped huge  praises on the CEO of Afrikings Home limited Mr Kingsley Awodi urging other Nigerians to join federal government to maintain all the stadium in the country.

According to him, the young man has taken a bold step and deserved to be praised. This, when done will be part of the achievements that we have delivered. 

 “When about three years ago we started the Adopt-A-Pitch-Initiative, it was with the intention of rescuing our sporting infrastructure and also to improve the welfare of our athletes.

“Actually the first component which we worked on has to do with Adopt-An-Athlete-Initiative by creating a funding pathway for our athletes to prepare for the Olympics and the Commonwealth. We have seen the successes of that initiatives, we have seen the impact of it. And that is why beginning from next month, we will start that same process towards France 2024. 

Speaking on the 2024 Olympic, the Minister expressed that: “The Adopt-An-Athletes process will start. We will put forward our athletes that will go both the home based and the foreign based, then we’ll see what we can do for them.

“Also, we kickstarted the Adopt-A-Pitch-Initiative which we have seen delivered the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, Abuja, where we have seen more than 14 international matches played there already. We have seen Surulere coming up. And for Surulere we just have to be patient to get it right because 19 years abandoned things have rusted, things were stolen, to get it right. We have seen Daura Stadium being done. 

“To have someone to adopt a pitch here is welcomed and a thing of joy because I know this would be seen by others and serve as an attraction to others to come. We have several football pitches here and our budget is limited. 

“We have started implementing the sports as a business policy which means we must leverage on private sector participation.

“The National Development Plan 2021-2025 is based on 70 percent private sector funding and 30 percent Federal Government funding. That is the future of development. We must partner with individuals and corporations and I think the sports sector has keyed into it. We will look forward to what can be done in six to eight weeks and that will be really exciting. When it’s done and ready, we are going to bring two teams to come and play here so that we can get the feel of it and others can see and do likewise.”

In his early remark,   the CEO and  Chairman of  Afrikings Homes, Ltd,  Kingsley Awodi, said that he want to be part of the success stories recorded by the minister on achievements and the  passion he has for football was the reasons he decided to take charge of refurbishing and maintenance of the training pitch for the two years.

However,  the full re-grassing will take 6 to 8 weeks before it would be handed over to the ministry after which the company will be responsible for its maintenance for two years.

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