Volleyball
By Babatunde Ogunrinde
Lagos, April 9, 2018 (NAN) Kehinde Lamidi, the South-West Zonal Coordinator of Nigeria Volleyball Federation (NVBF), on Monday in Lagos said that the federation’s National League would bring great development to the sport in its entirety.
Lamidi however told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the competition that the federation needed sponsors to make the league a success.
“We are happy to have finally taken off the ground on the much-anticipated volleyball league, which we hope in no distance time will bring positive development to the sport.
“The league has long been expected and with the inception of the Musa Nimrod-led NVBF board things have continued to change.
“Our President is determined to turn the fortunes of the sport around and organising a successful league will bring about a great change,’’ Lamidi said.
He said the players, coaches and technical officials have all placed their hands on deck for the successful running of the league.
“The league will keep everybody busy — the players, the coaches, the referees and all other stakeholders in the business.
“There will also be organised clinics to train more hands to do certain specific duties which must be at par with international regulations.
“Once everybody is actively involved, there is the tendency for the sport to grow, especially the plans we have to also catch young aspiring players to replace the ageing ones.
“Sincerely, gone are those days when we call players to camp because we are planning to go for an international event.
“The players are now on the radars of everybody. We can easily select the players based on form for international assignments,’’ Lamidi said.
He said 16 teams would make the zonal qualifiers and thereafter eight teams would qualify to play the national championship while the remaining eight will play in the division one.
NAN reports that the league began on Sunday with two games and will run till November when the national champions would be crowned.
Sunshine Spikes of Ondo defeated Team Lagos 3-2 to begin proceedings at the Lagos centre.(NAN)
BAO/OFN/OLAL
==============
(Edited by Felix Nwadioha and Olawale Alabi)