By Jacob Ajom

For more than one month, between October 3 and 23 November, 2023, scores of Nigerian youth footballers in Lagos, had a first feel of championship football, courtesy 1XBET Cup 2023. It was long weeks of struggle, excellent, undiluted football by the Innocents. Skill and entertainment were in abundance. And it ended in a flourish.

In the gold medal match, Bariga FC beat Odion Ighalo Academy 2-0. In the struggle for third place, Young Strikers from Lagos Island overcame the resistance of De Elite FC from the Epe Conference and won bronze medals.

After the final which was held at the Mobolaji Johnson Arena, tournament initiator, Waidi Akanni summed it all: ‘I was pleasantly surprised for what the tournament turned out to be. It was a huge success and my appreciation goes to all the participating clubs, members of the organising committee, stakeholders and the media, in particular, for putting up such a wonderful show.”

He applauded his management team for giving their all. “They were great. The final was befitting for the image of a global brand like 1XBET,” he enthused.

Waidi, a former chairman of the Lagos State Football Association told Sports Vanguard that the 1XBET Cup has thrown up a lot of kid talents who, before now,, were unknown. “I was equally astounded by the high level of skill and talent witnessed during the competition, particularly, when you consider the fact that these are non-league clubs.”

Akanni said the high level of enthusiasm demonstrated by the clubs has forced the organisers and their sponsors 1XBET to expand the scope of the competition. “From the next edition, teams will be involved in playoffs before they can qualify to take part in the conferences. We wanted just 40 clubs but after the press conference, there was a deluge of entries. As a matter of fact, some of the late entries complained to our sponsors that we eliminated them unjustly, which was not true.”

He said what thrilled him most was the way the teams emerged. Some of the communities, like Bariga, that turned out the eventual winners had no standing team. “They went to the streets to recruit boys to form a team. It was really a community-based tournament,” Akanni recalled.

Akanni, a former Nigeria international, reserved special praise for his former colleagues, ex-internationals who worked as team mentors and others who were in the technical Committee. “They brought their wealth of experience and did wonderfully. The young boys looked up to them and their influence was overwhelming.”

He noted with delight that he, as the initiator and the sponsors have agreed to increase the winning prize money. “Surely, the prize money will be increased, maybe threefold.”

In addition, the next edition will see the expansion of the tournament to two or three states in the western part of the country.

“Next year’s final may not be in Lagos because we are getting more states from the West to participate. We will start gradually until we cover the entire country in the near future.”

With this experiment, Akanni suggested that it will be necessary for coaches, the football association to show more interest in the 1XBET tournament and similar grassroots-based tournaments. “We are working closely with the Lagos FA. The technical director was with us throughout and the head of the technical department of the Nigeria Football Federation, Austin Eguavoen was at the pre-event press conference too. We need more collaboration like this to achieve our objective which is to reinvent Nigeria football and rebuild our national teams”