Chairman organizing committee for ‘The Ifako Ijaiye 2nd Novelty Match’, Alao Olamilekan has revealed that there are plans for continuation of the competition with it serving as a platform for grassroots talents to be discovered, developed to the highest pinnacle of their careers in football.
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Alao further allayed that the competition isn’t just some sort of rituals, or a casual event to entertain community members but it’s a project that will be consolidated and built upon as time goes by as it will help in curbing societal vices perpetuated by youths.
The Ifako ijaiye 2nd Novelty Match is an initiative of Otunba Richard Tobi and Otunba Eyitayo Ogunmola to the community of Idi-agbon to provide a route out of social vices and assisting talented players achieve their dreams through the structural plans that has been put in place.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Sports247 concerning the project, Alao gave a detailed insight as to the rewards for winners, after competition events and scouting of talented players by foreign scouts with affiliations to Europe top clubs.
“The The Ifako ijaiye Novelty competition is all about to showcase talents around the Ifako Ijaiye Ojokoro, Agege and other places that took part in the competition.”
“The hosts have intentions of bringing down some scouts as I was told. Bayern Munich and other top clubs have interest in the first XI that will be picked after the tournament.”
“It’s a free entry competition and it’s open to every player. The hosts just want the teams’ that are willing to participate to bring just a ball,” he added.
Featuring 24 teams, the format will be a knockout stage and after the first round, four best losers will be picked to make it a round of 16 which is picked through penalty shot out and other rules of the game.
For the first edition, there was no first XI but five were picked and given awards, best young players, highest goal scorers and other standout players.
Revealing about the prize money, Alao revealed that it’s a competition of N1.5 million naira as stated with the first position going home with the sum of N800,000 and second with N500,000 while the third placed team will earn N200,000.
On the format for the events – “the first one was played in February this year so the hosts discussed and decided to bring the competition back so that’s why we started another one in late July. I think they want it to happen three times yearly but as it is now, this is the second one for the year but we don’t know if we will have another one by December.”
“This competition has given a lot of advantage to she community generally, some people have what they are doing but football has brought everyone together to be United and promote community values while also reducing the incessant use of drugs amongst youths,” he concluded.
