All is set for Season II of the Secondary Schools Flag America Football Tournament in Akure, Ondo State, between July 29 and August 5.
The Secretary of Nigerian Schools Sports Federation Flag Football League, Lawrence Ojaide confirmed that school teams from seven states would converge on the Akure Town Stadium for the competition.
According to Lawrence: “There’s so many opportunities in sports. We noticed here in Nigeria that how can such a sport exist, and that Nigeria is not in the forefront of that sport. That was what brought about the event that ensures that we have a national association.
“That was the first thing, and also ensuring we have a strong structure around sports. That was the next stage. And we also ensure that we have the right partnership, both locally and internationally to be able to pull it up, and then we ensure that we have the right people on board. People would be able to put selfless minds into the sports, which would be enthusiastic about the sports, and personable about the sports. And that is why we can highly say we have Babajide Akeredolu, who will be the parent and founder of the national association. We are proud to say that.
“Then, our aim now is to see that we have a sport in Nigeria that is also going to be ranking among the top sports in the country within a few years. We could be able to get to that level where we can proudly say now development from the grassroots has been so successful to us.
“However, we just want to be sure that we trickle to that effect to all states of the Federation and from the grassroots we can say okay, we now have students who can make it to the next level and we can support those students to make it to the highest level, which is the NFL
“We’ve seen it happening right now because we have our Season I of the Nigeria Secondary Schools Flag Football League (NSSFFL) in 2022. In Season I, we can say we have recorded about 10 athletes in Season I who have been drafted into a League called upright.
“Upright is a League that has the potential to skyrocket talented players to the next level. And we can see that about 10 of the athletes who participated in Season I have made it, and are already in that League. And we also saw scholarships awarded to about 141 students in that same season.”
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“Season II now has so many states already participating which is going to be happening this month in Ondo State. From July 31 to August 5. And about seven states are participating. That means we can record in the next edition that will have a lot of people who would have made it to the next level.”