The maiden of the Higher Institutions Football League (HIFL) across Universities in Nigeria is set to hold. In preparation to ensure smooth operations, the Green White Green (GWG) Sports center, technical consultant for the league had a retreat for the officiating officials, the assessors, the commissioners and the participating team coaches.
The retreat was held with the aim of structuring the capacity of the officials for a smooth running of the league. The retreat was held in Abuja which had 24 referees, 8 assessors, 10 match commissioners and all the participating team coaches in attendance.
The CEO of GWG, Alhaji Ahmed Shuaibu Gara said the coming together of Higher Institution Football League is to create a platform for students to showcase their in-built talents to the whole world. He also said HIFL is aimed at filling the space that has been in existence for a while in Nigeria.
“Smaller countries that their population is not more than that of Gombe state have university league games, why is it that Nigeris with our population and number of universities cannot have league game?. I am happy we are finally kicking off the games. At the end of this maiden edition, we hope to have convinced our sponsors and indeed Nigerians that collegiate sport is ripe in Nigeria. Then, we may be thinking of expanding to other sports,” he said.
Alhaji Ahmed also stated that “The process of having football league in our University started two years ago when I wrote a proposal to the federal government on the need to support sports development in the University. Since we are so notorious to start from the grassroots, we should start from the middle. Government cannot do everything. There is a big platform for the private sector in this initiative and, this time, we want to use this competition to make a big statement and set a standard.”
The inaugural edition will commence on August 1, 2018. The league will feature 13 old generation universities and 3 universities that finished first second and third respectively at the last NUGA Games.
The participating Universities are: University of Ibadan, Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Lagos, University of Nigeria, Bayero University, University of Benin, University of Port-harcourt, University of Jos, University of Uyo, University of Maiduguri, Usman Dan Fodiyo University and University of Ilorin.
Funmilola Bolaji is a Researcher, Writer and a trained Educationist; she’s the editor of Campusbiz Journal. You may want to reach her via for Campusbiz Journal related inquiries only.
