Afrikings Homes Ltd on Thursday adopted the Moshood Abiola Stadium Practice Pitch 1.
The adoption follows the success story recorded by the Adoption of the Moshood Abiola Stadium Mainbowl pitch by Aliko Dangote. Afrikings Homes’ adoption involves re-grassing the pitch by planting nursery seeds and maintenance of the pitch for two years.
According to the Chairman, Afrikings Homes, Ltd, Engineer Kingsley Awodi, the full re-grassing will take eight months before it would be handed over to the ministry after which the company will be responsible for its maintenance for two years.
Speaking on the initiative, Nigeria’s Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Chief Sunday Dare, praised Mr Kingsley Awodi and recounted the gains of the initiative which commenced three years ago.
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“This young man has taken a bold step and deserved to be praised. This, when done will be part of the achievements that we have delivered. “When about three years ago we started the Adopt-A-Pitch Initiative, it was with the intention of rescuing our sporting infrastructure and also to improve the welfare of our athletes,” Awodi said.
“Actually, the first component which we worked on has to do with Adopt-An-Athlete Initiative by creating a funding pathway for our athletes to prepare for the Olympics and the Commonwealth. We have seen the successes of that initiatives, and we have seen the impact of it. And that is why beginning from next month, we will start that same process towards France 2024.
“The Adopt-An-Athlete process will start. We will put forward our athletes that will go, both the home-based and foreign-based, then we’ll see what we can do for them.
“Also, we kickstarted the Adopt-A-Pitch Initiative which we have seen delivered at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium, Abuja, where we have seen more than 14 international matches played there already. We have seen Surulere coming up. And for Surulere we just have to be patient to get it right because 19 years abandoned things have rusted, things were stolen, to get it right. We have seen Daura Stadium being done. To have someone to adopt a pitch here is welcomed and a thing of joy because I know this would be seen by others and serve as an attraction to others to come. We have several football pitches here and our budget is limited.
“We have started implementing the sports as a business policy which means we must leverage private sector participation. The National Development Plan 2021-2025 is based on 70 per cent private sector funding and 30 per cent Federal Government funding. That is the future of development. We must partner with individuals and corporations and I think the sports sector has keyed into it. We will look forward to what can be done in six to eight weeks and that will be really exciting. When it’s done and ready, we are going to bring two teams to come and play here so that we can get the feel of it and others can see and do likewise.”
Engineer Awodi stated that he wished to be part of the success stories recorded by the minister on achievements and the passion he has for football were the reasons he decided to take charge of refurbishing and maintenance of the training pitch for two years.
