Kwara Ladies FC of Ilorin’s coach, Olajide Peter Muyiwa says his team is in Calabar to pick one of two promotion tickets from the ongoing Nigeria Women Football League (NWFL) Championship play-offs.
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Although his side could only settle for a 1-1 draw with Dreamstar Ladies at U.J. Esuene Stadium on Sunday, Coach Olajide remained defiant, as he declared their determination to play next season in the NWFL Premiership.
Olajide added in a no-holds-barred interview with sports247.ng that he is confident that the squad from Afonjaland will eventually gain promotion to the NWFL top-flight because they have planned very well for it.
“We are 100 per cent ready,” Olajide boasted. “I repeat, we have fully got ready to gain promotion.
“People should expect the real Kwara Ladies ever than before, because we have improved.
“Immediately after last season and the FA Cup, we went back to the drawing board and tried to fix a lot of things.
“We put a lot of things in place, which have been working out for us in many months during our preparation.
“The task before us and our target is not much than to just to pick the Premier League ticket; which shall be so in Jesus’s name.”
He admitted that the initial focus for Kwara Ladies was the development of young players in an academy, but enthused that they are now united in one focus to finally gun for promotion into Nigeria’s elite women’s football league.
“This squad of Kwara Ladies football team is united. It’s a project, and we can’t do without upcoming players; but we have added more to it.
“As I speak now, in the national under-17 team, we have four to five players that passed through Kwara Ladies.
“Having young, up and coming players is a project, but we beefed up the squad this time around.
“A project takes time, and that’s what we have suffered since; but now people are seeing what we were projecting. It’s the right time to bring it out.
“We’ve played in the Championship all these years, but we came out this year to say we now want to be in the premier.
“It means we have prepared ourselves for it, and we are ready for it,” Olajide affirmed.
He concluded by admitting that the 2024 NWFL Championship play-offs in Calabar will be tough, but insists his team is poised to pick one of two promotion tickets at stake.
“This competition will be a very, very interesting one; better and tougher than ever before.
“Having 19 participating teams is a good number. But, as I said earlier, we are ready for it.
“We have no fear and we are not scared of any team. We are here to do the job,” Coach Olajide posited.
