Sam Ocheho, the President of Handball Federation of Nigeria (HFN), says he is delighted with participants’ turnout at the National U-12 and U-15 Handball Championships which got underway on Saturday.
Teams from 15 states are taking part in the championships holding at the Rowe Park Sports Centre in Lagos from Friday to April 15.
Ocheho said on Saturday he was impressed particularly with the huge response from states which came to Lagos with their male and female teams.
“I am impressed because they have all come all the way from the northern and eastern parts of the country,’’ he said.
Ocheho said the HFN board has lined up good programmes for the sport. “But we are using this championships to cast the first stone, because the grassroots is the heartbeat and platform to identity budding talents.
“So, the response is really amazing and I am very happy about it, we have about five states from the north and some from the east and this speaks volumes.
“It’s a sign that the state associations are enthusiastic about the development of their young ones and are ready to cooperate with our board in taking handball to the long expected level,” he said.
The HFN president said he expected thrilling performance from the teams, as well as good conduct from players, officials and fans to make the week-long competition a memorable event.
He added that the championships was part of programmes to foster unity in the sport and ensure that there was a development of handball at the grassroots.
“This championships is an umbrella that brings our affiliated state teams together, whereby athletes play in their specified age categories. It is also a talent discovery forum.’’
Ocheho disclosed that no fewer than 30 players were discovered above the specified age requirements of the championships and were disqualified from featuring for their respective teams.
“I was part of the team that critically screened the players and we actually identified some over-aged. The over-aged were disqualified, while those above age 12 were moved to U-15.
“As a matter of fact, we emphasised on that rule to participating states concerning their teams and it’s an area we didn’t compromise in carrying out the penalties,” he added.
The participating teams are from states such as Lagos, Ogun, Ekiti, Edo, Rivers, Bayelsa, Niger, Kogi, Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto, FCT and Adamawa.
(NAN)
