Governing Bodies
Nigeria Premier Football League opts for Denmark-made SELECT as official match ball for Season 2023
Former Nigerian League top scorer and head of Operations of the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL), Davidson Owumi, has revealed that the official match ball for the Nigerian league this season will be SELECT.
It is produced internationally by Select Sport A.S which is based in Glostrup, Denmark.
But in Nigeria, it is distributed by Kaduna-based Markana Management who are one of the official partners of NPFL.
In Europe, SELECT is the official match ball supplier to the Swedish Allsvenskan and Superettan, the Danish national team, the Portuguese league, the Icelandig league, the Bosnian and Herzegovinian league, the Romanian league, the Danish men’s and women’s league and first division, the Norwegian men’s and women’s league.
Already, each of the 20 clubs in the league have reportedly received 24 balls. Owumi elaborated on the selection of SELECT as official match ball.
“It’s good to have Markana Management as one of our partners.
“The choice of SELECT match balls design is unique for the NPFL, as all 20 clubs now have same kind of branded balls, which is good publicity for our domestic league.
” The next stage is the branding of these balls. We plan to domesticate then to suit our product.”
The SELECT match design features black and Navy Blue colour and cool graphic outlines to make it pop from the white ball.
Meanwhile, Ekene Adams, Chief Executive Officer(CEO) of Markana Management expressed his delight after he said: “This is a step in the right direction for the NPFL and the many good plans the Interim Management Company (IMC) has for the league.
“We are trying to do something new and positive with the NPFL. Markana Management has a long-term plan for the development of the domestic league in Nigeria by including all the Under 17 teams of all the clubs.
“We are discussing developmental projects with the office of the Technical Director of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) as well.”
Governing Bodies
Nigeria becoming an epicentre of global badminton as Francis Orbih enters the Badminton World Federation Council
Laurels on the courts and now glory in the boardroom sums up the mark that badminton is making in Nigeria.
The President, Badminton Federation of Nigeria (BFN), Francis Orbih, has been elected as a council member of the Badminton World Federation (BWF).
The election took place during the BWF Annual General Meeting on Saturday in Xiamen, China.
Orbih emerged victorious over top contenders from other African countries.
He will join Cameroon’s Odette Assembe Engoulou on the council, while Chipo Zumburani (Zimbabwe) and Hadia ElSaid (Egypt) missed out.
An elated Orbih expressed his gratitude to fellow badminton presidents across the globe for their trust and support.
He said, “I am deeply honoured by the trust placed in me by my peers across the badminton world.
“I look forward to quality representation, driving development initiatives, and strengthening badminton’s global reach over the next four years.”
Orbih also acknowledged the support of the Federal Government of Nigeria, particularly the National Sports Commission (NSC), which he said played a significant role in his successful bid.
“The Chairman and the Director General of the NSC monitored the entire process. I’m grateful for their involvement and confident Nigeria will benefit from this,” he stated.
He further appreciated the BFN board members and the Nigerian badminton community for their prayers and continued belief in his leadership.
“From the day I declared my intentions, the board members of BFN have been supportive, and I promise not to disappoint them,” Orbih concluded.
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A former member of the FIFA Council, Mamoutou Toure, has been released from jail in Mali after almost two years in detention for alleged corruption, Malian media reports said on Wednesday.
Toure, president of the Malian Football Federation since 2019, was released after 622 days in prison on Tuesday.
He served on the FIFA Council, world football’s all-powerful decision-making body, for four years until last month when he lost his seat after failing to contest new elections.
The 67-year-old was arrested in August 2023 on allegations of embezzling $28 million of public funds but was granted a provisional release order by the Malian courts, reports said.
He was accused of misconduct during his time as the National Assembly’s financial and administrative director from 2013-2019.
Toure denied all charges and, during his time in jail, was last August re-elected as Malian Football Federation president for a second consecutive term, with his supporters claiming he was a victim of a conspiracy fuelled by detractors.
While in jail, he received a letter of support from FIFA president Gianni Infantino. However, as of last month, Toure is no longer a member of the FIFA Council or the Confederation of African Football’s executive committee.
-Reuters
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The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has denied reports of an outstanding debt to former captain Christian Chukwu and has challenged anyone with verifiable documents to prove otherwise.
Chukwu, a former national team captain and chief coach, died last Saturday.
The Nigeria Football Federation decried statements in a section of social media that the football-ruling body was indebted to the deceased.
Reacting to one statement on social media that claimed NFF owed the 1980 Africa Cup of Nations-winning team captain the sum of $128,000, NFF General Secretary, Dr Mohammed Sanusi, said: “There is no record in the NFF of any outstanding indebtedness to ‘Chairman’ Christian Chukwu.
“During the first term of the Board headed by Amaju Pinnick, a committee was set up to diligently peruse the papers of coaches who were being owed, even from previous NFF administrations.
“That committee was given the clear mandate to verify all debts and ensure that the coaches being owed were paid immediately. I am aware that the ‘Chairman’ was in the employ of the NFF between 2002 and 2005, before he was relieved of the post following the 1-1 draw with Angola in a FIFA World Cup qualifying match in Kano in August 2005. There is certainly no record of indebtedness to him in the NFF.”
Sanusi challenged anyone with genuine and verifiable documents of NFF indebtedness to any coach, who has worked with any of the National Teams over the past two decades, to come forward and tender those documents.
“As a credible organization that is very much alive to its responsibilities, if we are confronted with any genuine document of indebtedness to any coach, we will offset the debt immediately.”
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As major global sporting events beckon, Morocco’s monarch launches the Kenitra-Marrakech High-Speed rail project
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Nigeria becoming an epicentre of global badminton as Francis Orbih enters the Badminton World Federation Council
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