The First Noah Dallaji & Asisat Oshoala Para-soccer Championship and Girls Soccer Tourney begin today at the Liberty Pitch, National Stadium, Lagos.
The twin events are the initiative of the African Children Talents Discovery Foundation in collaboration with the Asisat Oshoal Foundation.
Speaking at the pre-event press briefing at the Eko Hotel & Suites in Lagos yesterday, Asisat Oshoala said the girls’ soccer tourney became necessary after her foundation realised that women footballers were starved of football competitions.
“Very often, you find football competitions for boys, and hardly do you hear or see girls, being engaged in tournaments. In line with the vision of our foundation which is focused on the girl child, we decided to float the girls’ soccer tourney.”
Oshoala disclosed that her meeting with the Chairman of the African Children Talents Discovery Foundation, Engineer Noah Dallaji, made her realise that charity work should not be gender-based, hence the para-soccer championship. “This would give them a sense of belonging,” Oshoala said.
In his speech, Engineer Dallaji said his foundation had been in existence for a long and it had been preoccupied with how to improve a lot of the teeming youth in the country.
“No nation can exist without the youth,” he stated, adding, “every individual has something in him to be discovered, to be honed and nurtured to stardom.”
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He said that his foundation just discovered 37 soccer talents that would soon be sent abroad to soccer academies. “Ours is to provide the platform for them to take advantage of. We are all born in different ways for different purposes,” he enthused.
The tournament ends on Monday, July.
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