••• Goes Home With N800.000 Cash Prize
Gwamcee News
The Ifako-Ijaiye Football Competition, Second Edition came to a close on Sunday, August 13th, as the final of the competition was played between Messiah FC, defending champion of the first edition, and Future Pro FC.
The final of the competition was played at the African Church Primary School in Ifako-Ijaiye, Lagos State, as Messiah Football Club beat their counterparts by a lone goal to retain their winning title of the competition.
Future Pro FC tried but could not find the net. Messiah team keeper was all over to knock them down. It ended up with 1-0.
The one (1) nil victory in favour of Messiah FC, the defending champion of the Ifako-Ijaye Football Competition, won the club a grand prize of Eight Hundred Thousand Naira (N800,000) in the second edition of the competition.
The football tournament was hosted by two friends, Eyitayo Ogunmola, known as Eyi-Eko, and Otunba Tobi Richard Sesi, a.k.a. JP, with the mission of uniting the communities in the Ifako-Ijaiye community through sports.
Future Pro FC team with host, HRM, and Football experts.
Eyitayo is a Nigerian US-based tech entrepreneur and the CEO of Utiva, a global talent development company that has helped over 45,000 Africans learn technology skills and supported major startups and enterprises to hire talents among Africans and minorities.
Eyitayo believes that sports is what brings people together without religious, tribal, and political sentiments, hence his reason of investing into sports with his friend JP.
Eyi-Eko, while speaking to sports newsmen at the tournament, said their mission is to help youths with skills that will help them attract international opportunities and engage the government to bring in policies that will change the people.
Speaking on his sponsorship’s partnership, Eyitayo, CEO of Utiva and Convener of the Eyi-Eko Movement, said he and his friend, Otunba Tobi Richard, popularly known as JP, were childhood friends who grew up together and have known for over 30 years. “Anytime I am doing something, he is always rallying around it and trying to support it; likewise, I always rally around anything he wants to do, trying to support him anytime he is doing something.”
“He is an intelligent person, so we just thought that we should rally around and invest in young people, but football is not the only thing we want to do together; we are building an SME, a skill training centre, and some other initiatives for the community.”
Eyi-Eko disclosed that he invited 15 scouts within and outside Nigeria to see great talented footballers in Ifako-Ijaiye Community. Aside from monetary rewards for the teams, “the most important thing to me is to provide a source of attraction to these people by inviting expertise and scouts to source and identify talent here, and who knows, the next Jay Jay Okocha could be from Ijaiye? he said.
“Ifako Ijaiye is building a standard stadium, I give kudos to the government for that, and we also want to rally around that for it. We have set up a committee of about five people to go for a novelty match, a boxing competition, table tennis, long tennis, and other things that can attract people, and after this competition, we are going to host an international competition that is going to be for under 14 teams. There is a goal to identify them while they are quite young,” he said.
He urged the government to support young people on this and stop building bureaucracies that may hinder the youth from accessing their pace. “As Ifako-Ijaiye Local Government is doing well, other local governments should do the same,” he stressed
Comparing international football players to local football, he said, What we need is to build infrastructure.” According to him, the global footballers all started locally. “There are a lot of talents in them that can compete with the international football standards, and they need a platform to shine. That’s why we are doing this to build an infrastructure where they can strive,” he said.
On part, Otunba Tobi Richard Sesi (JP) said, “This competition was organised just for the youths in Ifako-Ijaiye to let them know that their talent is not wasted.” “We are not just based on sports; we have the academic aspect, vocational studies. For now, we are doing it through sports. We have platforms, agents, and scouts we are collaborating with. So, if any talents are discovered in this sport competition, we will know how to push them forward for global standards.”
Competition Rewards and Prizes Won
1st Position: Messiah Football Club, Prize: N800,000
2nd Position: Feature Football Club, Prize: N500,000
3rd Position: Akanbite Football Club, Prize 200,000
Other prizes won include;
- Golden Boots, presented to Momoh Kabiru of Akanbite Football Club as the highest goal scorer of the tournament with five goals.
- The most valuable player of the tournament award was presented to Daniel Job of Future Pro Football Club.
- The Best Goalkeeper Award was presented to Ismail Monsuru of Messiah Football FC.
The prize winner of the football competition, Messiah FC, were also the winners of the first edition. At the first edition which was played in February, they went home with five hundred thousand naira (N500,000).
Eyi-Eko media team, Adedoyin Olorunshola Truth who spoke on the continunity of the tournament said, it is a long term project.
According to him, the two men has decided on a long term project and that is why it took us a long time to start this competition.” It is not a competition that we are going to drop and say we are not going to do again. We are prepared and the company are prepared too. Dayo too has prepared as a person because he has decided to give back to the community that raised him.
When we did semi finals, we had eight hundred youths, and the whole thing went peacefully. We have planned this program before we started. The future is a long time process to encourage grassroot football in Ifako Ijaiye and also take it to international world.”
” We are promoting integrity and the talent they have in this platform,” he added.
For Chief organiser of the tournament, Alao Olamilekan Fatai, the game aside for the joy it gives, will help small businesses strive by providing an avenue for SMEs to sell their products. “People wants to sell, and they don’t have a place to sell. With this, they can sell whatever products they have,”
He said that so far, they have not been any record of injury. Adding, that the youth are very happy with the initiative and they wished it does not come to an end. “Many loves watching live match than going to the viewing centers to pay to watch premiership.”
He thank Allah for the success so far, and the host for coming up with this to engage the youth.
