Encomiums! That was what the president of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Amaju Melvin Pinnick poured on Gov Nyesom Wike last week in Port Harcourt after inspecting facilities at the Port Harcourt Real Madrid Academy. Amaju while thumbing up Wike for establishing the academy said the NFF would partner the Rivers State government and also get the junior national teams to camp in the academy. In Amaju’s words:”I have seen academies in other parts of the world; as the president of NFF, I have been opportune to go round the world, what I have seen here is super, super impressive.
The beauty of the academy is that it has world-class facilities, the hostel, the labs, the gym, the dining; the finishing is superb. “On behalf of NFF, we want to commend the Rivers State Government led by Governor Wike. When he said two years ago he was going to complete this in record time, there were some doubting Thomases but I am here to say we have seen it.
We will be coming here in the next few months with very tall football personalities to commission this project.” Pinnick stressed further that the NFF would soon be knocking on the door of Rivers state government for the use of the facility to camp junior national teams. “The NFF will partner Rivers State government in many ways, you know, we have our youth teams, we can also get them to come and camp here; because we have a relationship, it will cost us little or nothing, the camp is world-class, when you hear players go camping, it’s not a tent, it’s a hotel and this one is beyond the hotel, this one is purpose-built for football, quite really impressive.”
