Sublime football at the grassroot in Nigeria will kick off when Kano Pillars Jr trade tackles with Giadano Fc of Kano in a game that promises to be a cracker at the Sani Abacha stadium, Kano this Friday 3rd June, by 4:00pm.
This was disclosed by Shola Ogunnowo, the Secretary of the Nigeria Nationwide League, addibg that the league body has put in place all the necessary logistics and organisation for a proper opening game, as hostilities in the Nationwide League 1 begins across all the venues for the 2015/16 season this weekend.
According to the scribe of the league body, the clubs in the Nationwide League have all registered for the league season and their players have undergone top class medical examination to ascertain the medical fitness of these players in order to avoid football tragedies on the field that might lead to sudden deaths through cardiac arrest and other unknown ailments in players, as he insisted that the era of clubs submitting quack medical report of their players is over in the Nationwide League One.
He added that the secretariat is working with a certified medical professional, who is a member of FIFA medical network (Dr. Adebola Olajide) and this medical exercise is compulsory for all the registered clubs players in the league, stressing further that the medical examinations will dwell on the heart condition of the players and officials, their blood , pulse and other necessary medical test needed to ascertain their medical fitness.
The medical exercise has already been concluded in some states in the Federation. Lagos state, Ekiti state, Ogun State, Kwara State, Osun State, Oyo State, Niger State, and the FCT Abuja are the few states that the medical team has concluded the medical exercise, while it is still on –going in Kano States comprising over 25 nationwide league clubs, Gombe State. Rivers State, Imo State, Yobe State, Kaduna State, Kebbi State, Jigawa State, Katsina State, Borno State and Plateau state to mention just a few.
“We are ready. We are fully prepared and the Congress of the League body has approved the kick off date at the last congress. We are really concerned with the medical fitness of these players and we have done the medical test for all the players in the Nationwide league division 1 and the states are eager for the league to begin and we are good to go this Friday 3rd , June, 2016.” Ogunnowo added.
There are 40 clubs in Nationwide league division 1 that will be battling for relevance across the federation and they are divided into 8 groups and winners of each group will qualify to the Nigeria National League NNL at the end of the season.
