The 8th edition of the 2025 Wasimi Summer Soccer Championship, a football festival that has been taking place every year since 2016, is just around the corner.
The venues for this year’s matches are football fields located between Wasimi and Wasimi Orile, adjoining twin settlements separated by a road and a rail line some 800 meters apart on the Lagos-Sango Otta-Abeokuta Express road in Ewekoro Local Government Area of Ogun State.
The festival is already dominating the conversations and commerce in the environment.
This year, the event that started 9 years ago like an inter-house sport between a few mushroom clubs in the environment, has blossomed into a thousand flowers, one of the biggest grassroots football programmes for talent hunt and development in this part of the country. It has also become a major contributor to the socio-economic life of the people of Wasimi and neighbouring communities.
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Hundreds of football coaches, academy owners, match officials, local and some international scouts, an observer-technical team from the Nigeria Football Federation, and some medical personnel accompany the teams to the championship and turn the environment into a carnival of some sort for those two weeks every year. This year, it assumes and even bigger and better dimension.
A relatively new institution, Owu College of Management Technology, located in Wasimi, with its 7000 student population, provides a new and significant background. Some of its facilities including its playing field and privately-owned hostel rooms, will come in handy and be a part of the event.
The Segun Odegbami International College and Sports Academy, SOCA, in Wasimi Orile, will provide an additional football field for matches.
Eagle 7 Sports Radio, new partners to the program, will provide live radio coverage and daily reports of the football matches and other activities around the championship.
The Eagle7 Bamboo Garden will be the hub of social activities, including official ceremonies, evening entertainment in film shows, dance and musical shows, drama, comedy, and meetings for teams officials and visitors coming to the championship. It will also host the health education programmes of the Nigeria Heart Foundation, NHF, the coaches training seminars and workshops, and awards ceremonies.
Every year, a few exceptionally gifted players benefit from the recruitment opportunities provided by clubs (local and foreign), and scholarships offered by schools (including SOCA) for those still In school and desirous to combine their football programmes with academics.
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From July 25 to August 10, 2025, Wasimi will host an estimated 3000 girls and boys from some 150 football clubs and academies around Nigeria.
Where would that number of participants be accommodated in that semi-urban environment?
The organizers assure me with their incredible stories of their 8-years experience; how the teams embed into the town, rent and take over empty student hostels and any new houses sprouting all over the place; how many teams stay with families in available rented rooms in the town, and so on. The various experiences will make a great documentary.
The two secondary schools in the town, as well as SOCA, located in Wasimi Orile, one kilometer away across the road and rail line that separate the two Wasimis, will provide the poor playing fields that the matches will be played on.
The Nigerian Heart Foundation, NHF, will be playing a major role this year by promoting enlightenment programs for prevention of heart-related situations during and beyond the period of the championship through workshops, practical trainings and lectures for all participants. This is as a prelude to the bigger celebration of the 25th anniversary of the World Heart Day to be marked all over the world on September 25, 2025.
Personally, I shall be involved, observing the entire program, documenting and reporting in my Daily Diary that will be on all my social media platforms for the world to follow what the twin towns of Wasimi and Wasimi Orile are offering in Sports this summer!
Registration is ongoing. Very soon, all roads will be leading to Wasimi for one of the biggest sports development programmes in Nigeria, today.
