‘Football development is our priority at Ilaji Sports Resort’

Chief Operating Officer, Ilaji Hotels and Sports Resort, Ibadan, Prince Adesina Araoye, has said football development is their priority as they target talented footballers and coaches for the country.

Speaking on Monday at the opening ceremony of Football Scouting and Coaching programme organised by Ilaji Hotels and Sports Resort in partnership with Malaga CF at Akaran, Ibadan, Oyo State, Araoye said they have discovered and nurtured talented youngsters who can compete well with their peers anywhere in the world.

Some of the facilitators at the seven-day coaching programme include former CAF and FIFA technical instructor, Chief Adegboye Onigbinde; Malaga CF Academy head coach, Marcos Antonio; FIFA licensed football agent, Diego Martin and former international, Mutiu Adepoju, among others.

Representative of the Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Kehinde Ojelowo, declared the programme open.

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Araoye implored the coaches who are participating in our coaching clinic to make the best use of the opportunity just as he thanked the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Ilaji Hotels and Sports Resort, Chief Dotun Sanusi, for creating the path that they have been treading.

He said: “The programme was in line with our vision football that creating a platform for discovery and nurturing of sporting talents to stardom. We knew that right from inception that we could not achieve this by ourselves alone, we need strategic alliances with people who have made it in the industry and that is why we had to invites the Malaga CF because we have a collaborative agreement with them to train our coaches as well as scout to bring our Malaga students to Europe and we also want to use the opportunity to expose our coaches.

“Having studied Malaga CF as a club, we share certain similarities in terms of football culture and principles; we love to groom and nurture players to stardom, same thing goes with Malaga. We have no doubt that their visit to us will yield positive results which are in consonance with our ultimate goal.

“The development of football in Nigeria is all inclusive, we cannot just do it alone, so we want to also co-opt aspiring coaches to also learn from the methodology that we have been training our Academy here, so that we can have all round development of football in Nigeria.

“At Ilaji Hotels and Sports Resort, we have been able to balance this wisely by investing in sporting infrastructure as well as decent hospitality structure. We have done the needful by investing in sporting infrastructure. With this arrangement, we have discovered and nurtured talented youngsters who can compete well with their peers anywhere in the world. To take our vision further upward from where it is to where it ought to be is the reason why we went into a strategic alliance with Malaga CF.

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“We have groomed youngsters who are dedicated, focused and talented; players who within a few years of being nurtured are well ahead of their peers simply because we have put them in an environment that is conducive for the cultivation of football culture,” he said.

Also, coach Onigbinde charged the participants to make use of the opportunity and acquire knowledge and learn how to manage the knowledge they get.