By Our Correspondent
The government of Nasarawa State had on Sunday 16th February,2025 at the Lafia Township Stadium adviced and urged all the participating teams of the 2025 Presidential Federation Cup holding across the thirty six states of the Federation.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of the competition the permanent secretary in the ministry of Youth and Sports Development Dr. Alhasan Ibrahim Adamu urged the six teams within the state to imbibed the spirit of sportsmanship during and after the game.
The quintessential Permanent Secretary further charged all the stakeholders within the Sports fraternity to keep to the rules of the game at all costs.
Dr. Alhasan Ibrahim assured them of the government readiness to invest more in Sports in order to carefully scouts and select skillful players that will be displaying during this competition as two teams who will qualifying from this competition will contend favourable with their counterparts at the national level.
Additionally, he equally cautioned fans of the various teams to shun acts capable of distablising the competition and swallowed unguarded utterances that will disrupt the games; noticing all the teams that will be playing are all from the state.
Earlier, the chairman of Nasarawa State Football Association Comrade Salisu Galadima thanked all the clubs for coming to register for the competition and promised them a levelled play ground .
” We as a football body have spoken to all the officiating teams that is match officials to be fair to all the teams irrespective of who is involved” we want fairness, we want the best two teams that will play final on Sunday 23rd February, 2025 to represent Nasarawa State well at the National level respectively.
The Chairman further assured the teams of better competition this year compared to the previous ones organized by his predecessors . He promised better prizes for both the winner of the competition, the runner’s up and even the third place at the end of competition come next Sunday.
To the all the fans and lovers of sports most especially football to which we belong, that we must do everything within ourselves to bring out the best in all our dearly teams. “Let us rally round them sportwise to support them without causing chaos and disruptions to the competition.
Speaking separately, after the opening game between Si14 FC from Keffi and FC, City Rollers of Nasarawa, the Chairman of Si14 FC Mallam Ogwos Ibrahim said, he is very excited and thankful to Almighty God for securing a win against their opponent today despite playing 1-1 draw with the opponent at the regulation time.
” the chairman said, we had to play penalty to win, even though some people said, penalty is a game of luck. Well, it does happen in football at least we picked three points which is the most important thing “.
Like I said, I am very excited after all.
Concerning the yellow card given to me, well, I can say it is normal for a coach who felt his side is not given attention and protection from the referee will have to speak up. I did what other coaches will have done.
The Chairman of Si14 FC further assured his fans and lovers of his team to be optimistic for victory against their opponent which will be probably Nasarawa United or FC Basira all Lafia based clubs.
Six teams registered for the ongoing Presidential Federation Cup populary know as FA Cup. These clubs include: Si14 FC- Keffi, FC City Rollers -Nasarawa, WAN AgaraFC- Wanba, Akwanga, and Nasarawa Eggon, JMT Fc-Lafia, FC Basira- Lafia and Nasarawa United Football Club the number club in the state.(www.krestnews.com)