The president of Showtime Flag Football, Amida Azeez is of a firm belief that the sport will make a stronger impact in Nigeria with increased attention from government officials, Sports247 reports.
Amida provided this assertion while speaking on a recent affiliation and sharing formula that brought unity into the sector, then saw him emerge as the vice-president of Nigerian Federation of American Football (NIFAF).
Amida projected that the new development will not only bring improvements to the now vastly-popular Showtime Flag Football League (SFFL), it will also encourage arms of government to provide more structures and people from the private sector to invest in it.
Amida expatiated, “What stakeholders do is to help private sector investors like us keep investing more and better. In that regard, what the federation has done is to give a place for us to say there is now unity.
“It gives us room for consistency and the chance to have better movement forward. Now, there is stability and no more quarrels.
“Government is now fully aware of the sport, and they are ready to provide infrastructure for it. So, we’ll keep working with the new structure, and we hope to get better.”
He then spoke about some gains that can be achieved from the new structure of flag football in Nigeria, among which is making it become a national event, as well as possibility of hosting the African championship along the line.
Amida submitted, “Our aim is to ensure that we keep investing and hope that, at every stage, we get the government support that we need.
“We also hope to get all the state affiliations that we need, and we’ll keep running the league from there. At the same time, we will try to achieve a better international impact.
“The world championship is in August in Germany, which will determine who qualifies for the Olympics. We hope to be at least in the top-two of that competition.
“We believe we have what it takes. We went to Egypt, and we won the championship – which means we are now African champions.
“We want to keep winning that competition, including next year. We also want to work with the federation to see how Nigeria can host the championship next year.
“For now, that’s only in the pipeline. There’s no discussion on it yet, but we’re hoping it could happen. So, we’ll keep working and see how far we can go.”
