A fast-rising soccer project located in the expansive Lekki Peninsula area of Lagos, Nigeria, Okaka Football Academy is staging a bold claim to clinch the plaque for best youth empowerment venture at this year’s African Illustrious Awards.
Sports247.ng gathered, not only is the team that is owned by Dr Arinze Madueke eyeing the youth development gong at this year’s awards ceremony, they also want to go home as the best African project in community development initiatives.
This is sequel to the academy’s multi-faceted focus that has seen the team emerge as a focal point in helping youngsters from poor homes gain fortune and fame from gainfully utilising their talent in the round leather game.
The academy has been buoyed by their owner’s big heart for charity, which has occasioned the introduction of many socially relevant ventures within the team and in their immediate environment.
The owner’s vision and mission, as stated via their official website, is ‘grooming professional footballers for the future,’ with a view towards providing adequate and lasting livelihood where none seems to be present in indigent families across Nigeria’s nooks and crannies.
This has created a very laudable and viable lifetime structure of sustainability that makes every less privileged yet talented football child move from deprivation into optimism for greater things to come.
The founder’s vision is propelled on a daily basis by the academy’s chairman, Mrs Chioma Madueke and the team manager, Mr Bugana Tochukwu, while technical matters are handled by the head coach, Adedeji Da Silva.
Together, they have been able to put in a place a very vibrant and virile structure in only two years of the academy’s existence, with auguries of even better days ahead already on the horizon.
Among their most promising products is Babatunde Damilola, whose goals propelled Okaka Football Academy to clinch top spot in the 2023 Lagos Divisional Football Association (LDFA) league just a year after the team was created.
That gave them a slot in the Nigerian national third-tier Nationwide League One (NLO) – and high expectations keep emerging that the team will march at accelerated pace to the top echelon within the shortest time possible.
