Heart Of Lion Football Academy of Igando, Lagos has sensationally rejected a sponsorship offer from a former player based in Belgium because it involved them changing their name.
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Sports247 gathered that the offer came with many trappings, which included opening a camp for the academy in the Igando-Ikotun axis, but the team’s coach turned it down.
The academy’s coach and founder, Azeez Oladimeji, said he will not accept a sponsorship offer that involved changing the name of the team he built from scratch and nurtured up to the level it currently enjoys.
He disclosed further that he dropped a job that paid him N120,000 a month in order to allow him to concentrate fully on building the youth project to an enviable level.
Coach Azeez noted that the offer from Belgium also included monthly salary for two coaches, annual payment for use of their training ground, monthly playing tour outside their immediate base and shared percentage in potential transfer of players to Europe.
He, however, stressed that he can not sell off his birthright because of fantastic promises that might not be fulfilled, and he would end up losing everything he has tirelessly worked for.
“If truly it is sponsoring that they are coming for, I think they don’t have to change the name of my academy. But, if they insist, my little opinion is they can get a place to train boys.
“We can work together as their coach. I can train the boys and they will pay me. In just a small time, we will have boys. Players will fill the place within a short period of time when we start.
“I want sponsorship, not somebody coming to acquire my team and then sideline me in the future,” Afeez reiterated, while further pointing out that the salary amount they offered him was also low.
