By Johnbosco  Agbakwuru, Calabar
Milo, a brand of Nestle Nigeria Plc, is to establish football Academy for the U-13 that will be representing Nigeria in the African U-13 championship to be hosted by Ghana next year.

Mr. Femi Akintola, Category Business Manager, Beverages, Nestle Nigeria Plc who disclosed this in Calabar on Sunday said that the company has decided to extend the frontiers of sponsorship of sporting activities to football in order to develop the game.

Nestle which is sponsoring U-12 football competition in the ongoing national school festival taking place in Calabar, Cross River State, said team that emerges champion in the completion will be the beneficiary of the academy as the players will be camped for several months so that they will understand themselves before the Ghana 2012 U-13 championship.

“The winners of this competition will be put together in an academy where they will play together for a while and become exposed. We want to give a platform to Nigerian Students to see that their ambitions are realized”, he said.

Akintola who advised the pupils to do their best in the competition, said it was the intention of Milo to build the champion in them before they leave for Accra next year.

Also speaking at the occasion, President of Nigerian School Sports Federation, Alhaji Ibrahim Mohammad commended Milo for taking up another challenge to sponsor U-13 championships apart from its sponsorship of Basketball in the country.

He said that the gesture was to make sure that Nigerian children get to the pick and enjoy what other children in other countries enjoy. He called on other corporate organizations and philanthropists to emulate what the company was doing as they are contributing their quota in the development of children in the country.

He regretted that the game of football was dying and going away from the country, adding that Milo has taken the bull by the horn by taking charge right from primary school.

As at Sunday evening out of the 22 states competing in the U-12 football tournament, seven states had qualified for the quarter finals. The states include, Anambra, Lagos, Cross River, Oyo, Niger, Ekiti and Jigawa while the match between Rivers and Benue was to be decided latter in the day.