It was a date made for football in Anambra state as over 80 clubs/academies and school teams all bore witness to the biggest footballing event in Anambra state and Southeast as a whole. The event tagged “Unveiling of Grassroots Football Development Programmes” at the Awka City stadium also saw major football stakeholders within and outside the state in attendance.
In his address at the colorful event, Gen. Chikelue Iloenyosi was grateful to all who made it to the arena as he promised that more is to come from the FA.
“I can’t thank you all enough for coming out today. This a sighter that we have to do even more to march your eagerness to continue playing football in the state. We have so many programmes lined up for all of you. School sports will be revived and branded in a modern way, we will be setting up state league that will cater for different age brackets and work in consonance with other working leagues to make football striving in the state. We will be training the coaches in accordance with global standard to impact proper knowledge to you all. There will be a workshop for all the game masters in both primary and secondary schools. We won’t do this all alone, we are already speaking with sponsors who have shown great interest to be part of our programmes and with time we will unveil them all.”
“Before most of you were born, our state was the pride of football in this nation. It is my responsibility to you all to return our state as the hurb of footballing excellence in Nigeria. What we just did today is to officially introduce ourselves to you and give you the confidence that we will deliver for you all, this is the tip of the iceberg”
The General Manager of Nnewi United, Olisa Onuchukwu in his key note address, poured encomiums on the person of Gen. Chikelue Iloenyosi as urged Anambra Footballing Community to brace up for what it to come.
“Many of you here are not aware of who is standing before you. Our FA Chairman has the capacity to change the ugly narrative of football in our state. The authentic Change we seek in football is here. What you are seeing today is just a dress rehearsal of what is to come. Our FA Chairman who is an Ex-international having played within and outside the country has the desired experience to anchor our footballing ship to the promise land. Thank you General for today.”
There were presentation of footballs items and monetary allowance to each of the over 80 teams that participated in the event. Accreditation was done to collate the actual data of respective teams and players there in as the Chairman will be paying working visits to these teams.
There was a novelty match between two female teams, Awka Angels and GP World Ladies. Among top dignitaries that graced the occasion are Cordelia Akanna, board member of Anambra FA, General Manager of Heartland FC, Mr Promise Nwachukwu, Former Nigerian International, Mobi Oparaku, Acting Secretary of the FA, Raph Nweke, SSA to the FA Chairman, Ifeanyichukwu Ojukwu, Chairman of the Organizing Committee, Prince Michael JIMBAZ Mbaezue, owner of Obosi United, Mr Uzoo Epundu, LFC Chairman of about 16 LGA, Okey Igbo, Mike Ogbodu, Epere Udo, Ibeh Johnson, club owners and coaches of the over 80 teams present.
