{"id":3008,"date":"2023-10-07T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2023-10-07T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=3008"},"modified":"2023-10-07T12:00:55","modified_gmt":"2023-10-07T12:00:55","slug":"sports-minister-engages-stakeholders-for-advancing-football-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2023\/10\/07\/sports-minister-engages-stakeholders-for-advancing-football-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Sports Minister Engages Stakeholders for Advancing Football Development"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Senator John Owan Enoh, the Minister of Sports Development, has reaffirmed his unwavering commitment to fostering the growth of sports in Nigeria. In pursuit of this goal, he recently convened a crucial meeting with key stakeholders within the industry to deliberate on the future of football development in the country.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The meeting, which transpired on Friday at the Moshood Abiola National Stadium in Abuja, brought together prominent figures from various sectors of the football industry. Minister Enoh engaged with leadership from the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL), Club Owners&#8217; Association, and the Nigeria Referees Association (NRA). The extensive discussions aimed to chart intentional and strategic actions, particularly concerning the operations of clubs and match officials, with the overarching objective of elevating football in the country to a professional standard deserving of admiration.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In a press statement issued by Muhammed Manga, the Director of Press and Public Relations, the minister emphasized that the government has been diligently collaborating with industry stakeholders to bolster football development in Nigeria. This collaboration has entailed the introduction of substantial initiatives, policies, and programs.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, Minister Enoh expressed his disappointment regarding the omission of Nigerian referees from participation in the AFCON 2023 competition. He called upon the leadership of the relevant bodies to unite, introspect, and reinvigorate the state of football for the betterment of the nation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>He emphasized that true football development in Nigeria cannot be claimed if our referees are consistently excluded from international tournaments year after year. The Ministry is deeply concerned about this situation, as it reflects negatively on the nation&#8217;s reputation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are concerned because this does not spell well for the reputation of our nation,&#8221; he emphasized, highlighting the urgent need for concerted efforts to address these challenges and strengthen Nigeria&#8217;s standing in international football.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Senator John Owan Enoh, the Minister of Sports Development, has reaffirmed his unwavering commitment to fostering the growth of sports in Nigeria. In pursuit of this goal, he recently convened a crucial meeting with key stakeholders within the industry to deliberate on the future of football development in the country. &nbsp; The meeting, which transpired [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-3008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3009,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3008\/revisions\/3009"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}