By Daily Sports on July 13, 2017

Benin Warriors football club of Benin City who emerged as shock winners of the Edo State league for grassroots clubs last year within the state will not be defending the title this year.

After a meeting earlier this year, the management of the club, which this writer leads, took the decision of not participating in this year’s edition of the state league because of the lack of proper sponsorship for the tournament.

The club simply has no appetite of participating in the league which kicks off in a few weeks, because after spending hundreds of thousands of naira last year to prosecute their campaign in the competition, the Edo FA, citing a lack of sponsors for the tournament rewarded the club with nothing (apart from a hurriedly bought trophy) after the club made history by winning the league in its debut season of participation.

Benin Warriors wishes to note that despite the prestige of winning the competition, success in that tournament came at a steep price as the lack of financial reward and the total lack of meaningful support from important quarters as they prepared for the national amateur league play offs for which they qualified by virtue of winning the league, sapped the enthusiasm of a number of its very talented players and their parents towards the game, leading some to quit.

The leading scorer of the competition and player of the team Anayo Iwuala for example was emphatically stopped by his parents from playing the game after watching him come home with nothing after the league triumph last year and despite attempts by some local clubs to sign him, his father refused because he didn’t see much prospects of his son’s progress in a climate that hardly rewards success.

So it is a matter of principle that Benin Warriors are pulling out of the league this year, because the club can’t in all honestly fathom going through the hassles of last year which includes paying 50,000 naira for registration and incurring other heavy costs to play in the league, with an expectation of nothing in return, no matter how well the club does in the league, especially when it has no desire and means for now to play in the national amateur league which success in the state league is a pathway towards;

The club wishes to state that it has no special grudges against the Edo FA and it recognises the difficulty of finding sponsors for a true state league, and it looks forward to participating in other Edo FA organised tournaments.

For all the teams participating in this year’s edition of the state league, Benin Warriors wishes them the best of luck and expresses hope that they would enjoy the experience.

Benin Warriors meanwhile continues to impart the right technical, physical, tactical and mental education on its players, and plans are on to help the players improve their football career prospects by participating in local and national tournaments, as well as football trials, like the club has done in the past.

Parma’s Ghanaian player murders mother and 11-year-old sister in Italy

A talented Ghanaian footballer who was at one point a rising star in Italy’s youth football scene has confessed to murdering his mother and younger sister in Parma on Tuesday night (July 11).

Solomon Nyantakyi, who played for the primavera (youth) team of Parma, admitted to killing his mother Patience Nfum, 43, and sister, Magdalene Nfum, 11. His admission came as police arrested him while he tried to escape to Milan on Wednesday morning.

His brother Raymond alerted the police after he found his mother and sister’s bodies covered in blood in their apartment in San Leonardo, a multi-ethnic neighbourhood on the outskirts of Parma.

Police tracked Nyantakyi, 21, down and arrested him at Milan’s central station.

Nyantakyi was once regarded as one of the top prospects in Italian football. He was selected by coach former Italian national team coach Roberto Donadoni to play for the youth side at Parma where he flourished, winning several titles for the club. But his career took a nosedive when the senior team went bankrupt in 2015.

He joined Imolese Calcio, a team playing in Italy's fourth tier, before he gave up football altogether after he became caught up in bad company.

Donadoni remembers him as a “quiet guy, silent rather.”

“It was hard to figure out what was going on in his head,” he said. (Courtesy IBT)

Source Daily Sports

Posted July 13, 2017

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