S uper Eagles Head Coach, José Santos Peseiro was present at the NFF/FIFA Goal Project pitch on Tuesday morning as Nigeria’s U20 boys, Flying Eagles mauled Capital City Football Academy 4-0 in a friendly match. The warm-up game was another tune-up session at the Moshood Abiola Stadium, as part of the general preparations for the Africa U20 Cup of Nations tournament in Egypt this month. Goals from Samson Lawal, Agbalaka Solomon, Olamilekan Adams and Yahaya Ibrahim ensured the Flying Eagles extended their unbeaten run to sixteen games. A delighted Peseiro, while speaking with Head Coach of the Flying Eagles, Ladan Bosso said the team has a lot of quality and he is convinced that the U20 boys will put up a performance in Egypt that would be good enough to qualify them for the FIFA U20 World Cup finals in Indonesia later this year. The Portuguese tactician was at the match venue together with NFF Technical Director, Augustine Eguavoen and Super Eagles Team Administrator, Dayo Enebi Achor. The Flying Eagles are billed to play Zambia U20 men’s team on Saturday before the team departs Nigeria for Morocco on Wednesday.

Paris 2024 Olympic: Top official throws in towel 18 months to games

Sports director for the Organising Committee of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Jean-Philippe Gatien, has resigned from his position just 18 months before the Games come to the French capital. insidethegames understands Gatien has stepped down due to “personal reasons”, with executive director of sports competition and deputy sports director, Aurélie Merle, to fill the role. Merle joined the Organising Committee in July 2018. He is remembered as one of the key members of staff at Paris 2024, being part of the team during the bidding process as sports director since 2015. Prior to the official bid, he was involved in preparatory workshops alongside some of his future colleagues, including Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet. He oversaw major decisions as sports director such as moving surfing competition to Tahiti in French Polynesia, over 15,000 kilometres away from the host city Paris; as well as being part of the team to reject karate’s request to stay on the Olympic programme after debuting at Tokyo 2020.

Pro- Wrestling President assures on Valentine championship

P resident of Nigeria Pro-Wrestling Federation Chief John Uche says that the board is working assiduously towards thrilling Nigerians with the best of wrestling at the forth coming Valentine Championship slated for February, 12,2023; two days to “Valentine Day” at Okota, a suburb of Lagos State. He told the Catholic Herald in his office that the fight which will attract some of the best mats men and women in the country will be used to preach peaceful coexistence especially now that the general election is approaching even as he appealed to government at all levels and corporate Nigeria to partner with the Federation in it’s bid to revive the oldest and once most popular sports in the country. “We at the Federation are organising this championship in order to rekindle people’s interest in wrestling which in the past was the country’s number one sports. We also want to use it to preach love and peace bearing in mind Nigeria’s General elections of 25th February 2023 to elect the President and Vice President as well as members of the Senate and House of Representatives that will pilot the affairs of the country in the next four years. “It’s important that I appeal to government at all levels and corporate organisations to invest in wrestling so as to keep our youths busy and off the street.” Chief Uche who described Nigeria as a country with the highest number of talented wrestlers in Africa noted that his body is grooming new wrestlers that will take over from the old ones who will later serve as role models to the younger ones “Right now we have more than 10,000 wrestlers all over the country and we’re also grooming younger ones that will gradually take over from the ageing ones in order not to have a vacuum. Nigeria is a leading wrestling country in Africa with one of the most experienced coach in the person of Elephando Bassey ( The wizard of wrestling). “Other countries in the continent be it Cameroon, South Africa, Angola, Congo or Congo DRC fear our fighters and even the person who is presently parading himself as African champion is being trained by Nigerians. So what our wrestlers need to get to the top is encouragement,” he stressed.

Meanwhile Nigeria Wrestling Federation has appealed to the Sports Minister to as a matter of urgency reverse his decision to forcefully eject wrestlers from their training ground at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos. It would be recalled that last two years the Minister of Youth and Sports Sunday Dare ordered the wrestlers to vacate their training ground and handed the facility to the National Institute For Sports (NIS). Speaking on the matter, Chief Uche said they’ve written to the Honourable Minister on the need to reverse the decision but nothing has come out of it.. He explained that the facility was approved by previous administrations for use by wrestlers and wondered why the present Sports Minister acted the way he did. “It’s unfortunate that Minister Sunday Dare took such an unpopular decision not minding that we have approval for the use of the facility from his predecessors. Our property is still there and forcefully ejecting us from there is very undemocratic because we’re not there illegally. “I also want to make him understand that Nigeria is blessed with vast expanse of land and they should allocate such lands to NIS to develop as other Institutions of Higher Learning are doing and allow sports men and women unhindered assess to sporting facilities at the Stadium”, he concluded.