Rufai solicits HotSports’ partnership for football talent hunt

Ex-Super Eagles star, Peter Rufai is seeking the partnership of HotSports Nigeria, a subsidiary of HS Media Group, in discovering and promoting hidden football talents in schools in order to help develop the game nationally.
The renowned ex-goalkeeper nicknamed ‘Dodo Mayana’ was at the company’s corporate headquarters in Oregun, Lagos on Thursday where he held a closed door meeting with the Group’s Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Taye Ige on how best to collaborate in discovering skilful players for Nigeria.

Toriola joins Belgian club

Nigerian table tennis star, Segun Toriola, will join a Belgian table tennis club after the 2016 Olympic Games.
The player, who will be featuring in his seventh Olympics for Nigeria in August, quit French Division Two side, Argentan Bayad, after nine years.
Toriola played his last game for Argentan on May 3 and was honoured by officials of the club in France.
Before dropping to second division two years ago, Argentan played in the Premiership Division with Toriola leading the team. They however finished third last season and failed to secure a return to the Premier League.

Russia 2018: FIFA to conduct special African ranking

World football governing body FIFA has said a special ranking will be established for African countries for the Russia 2018 World Cup qualifiers.
In a letter sent by mail to the football federations of the 20 countries in the last stage of the qualifiers, FIFA said it would release the ranking on June 21 following complaints from several of the teams.
The previous ranking, which was done by FIFA last week, was fraught with complaints as some countries believed it should have been done with the June FIFA ranking.
Egypt were reportedly among the countries who complained about the seedings, which put them in Pot two along with Nigeria. They argued that they should be in Pot 1, which is reserved for the top seeds.

Onazi, Ideye leave for France

Lazio midfielder  Ogenyi Onazi and  Greece-based Brown Ideye top the list of the players who departed the country on Tuesday for France ahead of the Super Eagles’ friendly game against Mali on Friday.  Others are goalkeeper Ikechukwu Ezenwa, Monaco defender  Elderson Echiejile, Musa Muhammed, Abdullahi Shehu, Kingsley Madu,  Etebo Oghenekaro and  Aminu Umar.

Mikel shares adorable photo of twin

With the season over and the coming of a new manager at Chelsea, John Mikel Obi, the captain of the Super Eagles, is helping his girlfriend and mother of his twins,  Olga Diyachenko with the babies. Mikel recently shared a photo of himself playing with one of the twins. Mikel became the father of the twins, Mia and Ara in September, 2015.

It’s 30th title for Messi

Barcelona on Sunday clinched a La Liga and Copa del Rey double for the second successive season on what turned out to be yet another landmark night for Lionel Messi.

The Argentina international was in inspired form against Sevilla at the Vicente Calderon, setting up goals for Jordi Alba and Neymar in extra time as Barca ended their domestic campaign with a record 28th King’s Cup triumph.

Leicester make £23m Musa bid

Leicester City have made a bid in the region of £23m for CKSA Moscow striker Ahmed Musa, according to the Russian club’s manager Leonid Slutskiy.

The Premier League champions were interested in the 23-year-old in January, but have now returned with a concrete offer for the Nigeria international.

Breaking News: FIFA president to visit Nigeria

The Nigeria Football Federation on Sunday announced that President of Federation of International Football Associations, Gianni Infantino, will visit Nigeria in June.
A statement issued in Abuja on Sunday by NFF’s Assistant Director of Communications, Ademola Olajire, said that the visit was a fall-out of NFF President, Amaju Pinnick’s recent meeting with Infantino in Mexico.

Iheanacho shines

Manchester City are all but assured of a place in next season’s Champions League as Manuel Pellegrini’s time at the club ended with a draw at Swansea on Sunday, BBC Sport reports.
They were denied a win as Andre Ayew’s deflected free-kick cancelled out Kelechi Iheanacho’s close-range opener.

D’Tigers going to Rio as medal contenders – Oyedeji

D’Tigers captain Olumide Oyedeji says the men’s national basketball team are not afraid of their group opponents at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil.
D’Tigers are in Group B alongside hosts Brazil and London 2012 Olympics silver medallists, Spain, Argentina and Lithuania, while one of the winners from the 2016 FIBA World Olympic Qualifying Tournament in July will complete the five-team roster.

Man United/Bournemouth match called off over suspect device

 Manchester United’s final Premier League game against Bournemouth on Sunday was  abandoned after a suspect package was found in one of the stands at Old Trafford, Soccernet reports.
The bomb disposal squad was called in and a controlled explosion carried out within the stadium. Greater Manchester Police described it as an “incredibly lifelike explosive device” but added that the “device wasn’t viable.”

Read Details of How The ABL Has Been Going So Far?

The ABL has been going very well, we have exceeded all our expectations and projections, our fan base is growing, our All Star weekend attracted hundreds of fans from outside Nigeria while the All Star game itself had more than 3000 people in attendance and we have been successful in redefining the value of sports and entertainment in Africa, but most importantly we are proud that our fans find value in this one of a kind innovation. In an era when so many countries are experiencing economic downtime, ABL has created over 300 jobs across Africa in such a short time with our emphasis on local content and the local manufacture of our products in a space that never existed before the ABL. 

I’m proud to overtake Ronaldo – Suarez

Luis Suarez said on Thursday he felt “privileged” after scoring four goals against Deportivo La Coruna to move ahead of former Brazil striker Ronaldo’s tally of 48 goals in a season for Barcelona, Skysports reports.

The Uruguayan, who moved on to 49 goals in 48 games in the campaign, inspired Barca to an 8-0 rout of Deportivo, ending a run of four games without a league win and reigniting their bid to retain the La Liga title.

Siasia warns Musa, Iwobi, Omeruo

NATIONAL Under-23 team coach Samson Siasia has vowed to pick his Rio 2016 Olympic Games squad based on current form, warning big-name Super Eagles players thought to have booked their seats on the plane to Brazil It won’t be a piece of cake to board the flight.

Atlanta’ 96 Olympic Games men’s football champions Nigeria have been drawn in Group B alongside Sweden, Colombia and Japan in the 16-nation tournament at Rio 2016.
Siasia, who has been racking his brains to name his final 23-man squad for the August 3-20 Games, insisted on Thursday he would select the best players available.

Pinnick, Giwa didn’t listen to me – Dalung

Sports minister, Solomon Dalung, on Thursday said Nigeria’s football crisis would have been averted if Nigeria Football Federation president, Amaju Pinnick, and Chris Giwa had listened to him.

Dalung, who spoke in Lagos, said it was unfortunate that the game Nigerians loved was at the receiving end as a result of the leadership crisis.

NFF throws Eagles job open

The Nigeria Football Federation has thrown open the Super Eagles coaching job contrary to the earlier decision to limit the opportunity to expatriates. The change of direction was made late on Wednesday when the Technical and Development Committee of the FA met at the NFF secretariat in Abuja.

The NFF president Amaju Pinnick first gave the hint of limiting the search for a new coach to Europe in a forum held at the Harvard University soon after Sunday Oliseh left his position as Nigeria coach. The NFF board stated the same position when they met with the sports minister Solomon Dalung last month. Wednesday’s meeting was seen as one to tie up their defence on sticking strictly to a European coach but they announced a change of policy instead.

KSA, others light up OGD’s glamorous birthday

Juju maestro, King Sunny Ade, led other top entertainers to thrill guests at the 60th birthday celebration of former Ogun State Governor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, which took place last weekend at the Oriental Hotel, Lagos.

KSA, as the legendary musician is fondly called, mounted the stage midway into the well-attended ceremony after guests had been treated to melodious tunes from young artistes such as Beejay Sax and a host of others.

Celebrities Wth Too Many Baby Mamas

One of the most popular slang in the Nigerian entertainment industry of recent is the term “Baby-Mama” which literally describes a single mother or a lady who gave birth outside marriage. This practice has being in existence for so long but it gained headlines when entertainers, especially musicians popularized it by impregnating and having babies from their girlfriends and groupies. The crazy thing about this trend is, it seems the ladies who are most times dumped after having the babies have no problem with this bizarre practice as most of them jostle to be baby-mamas to male

Celebs without endorsement deals

Nothing defines the big league in Nigeria’s competitive entertainment industry as a mouth-watering endorsement deal a celebrity is offered.

To many of them, this is what sets them apart from the entire lot making them live large and live up to that celeb status.
There is no doubt that endorsement deals would feature prominently in the daily prayers of Nigeria’s celebrities. But then, the benevolence of the ‘god of endorsements’ has favoured few than others.

Why I reported Wizkid to the police – Linda Ikeji

The ongoing feud between blogger, Linda Ikeji and talented singer, Ayo Balogun, a.k.a Wizkid took another twist, Sunday, after Linda confirmed that she had reported the public threat issued against her by Wizkid to the Nigerian Police. In a post on her blog, Linda wrote: ”