The leading football clubs in Oyo, 3SC and Crown FC Ogbomoso have lauded the initiative of pre-season tournament organized by Oyo State Football Association in collaboration with the state’s Ministry of Youths and Sport tagged ‘Abiola Ajimobi 2014 Pre-Season Tourney’ which as commenced since Tuesday in Ibadan.

Head Coach of Ibadan darling club, Franklin Howard, while reacting after his side won narrowly against a nationwide side Atiba United in its first match in the tourney played inside the main-bowl of Lekan Salami Sports Complex said the pre-season initiative of FA is a good development.

Howard stressed those benefits that derivable from the tourney, especially for the technical crews of teams participating is too
enormous, saying “although we have played many friendly matches before now, but the competitive nature of this tourney has provided us more opportunities to see the team better and discover where to work on in the team”.

Also speaking was the Club Manager of the newly Crown FC, Coach Niyi Akande who was full of praises for the new Commissioner for Youths and Sports in the state, Farouk Alao for his pragmatic approach to issues and seal he has exhibited since assuming office.

He however, described the pre-tournament event as a right step in a right directions taking by the FA which will afford them to have an input in every teams preparing to partake in the league.

Motive behind the tournament according to the acting Chairman of Oyo FA Chief James Odeniran is for FA to have opportunity of accessing the state of all their teams that would be competing in the NPFL, National League, Nation-Wide League and the Amateur League and proffer necessary solution to the deficient aspect of the team.

“Kudos must be given to our Governor who had demonstrated great concern for the development of sports in the state by releasing huge funds for sports programs especially football, such huge sum that we have not seen in the history of the state before for, that was part of reason we named this pre-season after him.

“Secondly, we want to be part of preparations of all of our teams from the onset, and that was why we intend to use this tournament to access them and advise where we identified they were lacking, we all saw what happened to 3SC in Akure last season, where we lost a vital points due to lack of knowledge of the game.

“This time around, we don’t want to take any chances, and that is why we are going to henceforth assign members of FA to be part of all our teams to away matches so they can guide them when necessary”, Odeniran, a retired FIFA referee that took over from Leye Adepoju who was banned by NFF noted.

Akanbi Agiri