{"id":67177,"date":"2025-06-03T10:11:35","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T10:11:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=67177"},"modified":"2025-06-03T10:11:35","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T10:11:35","slug":"ikhana-launches-grassroots-football-academy-for-kids-in-edo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/06\/03\/ikhana-launches-grassroots-football-academy-for-kids-in-edo\/","title":{"rendered":"Ikhana Launches Grassroots Football Academy for Kids in Edo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Oluwamayowa Fakande<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Former Super Eagles defender and coach, Kadiri Ikhana, MON, has announced plans to launch a grassroots football academy for children aged 8 to 12 in Auchi, Edo State, in August 2025.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking from his hometown, Ikhana revealed that the Kadiri Ikhana Football Academy will begin with 60 players across the U8, U10, and U12 age categories.<\/p>\n<p>While the exact launch date remains undisclosed, preparations are well underway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the moment, I\u2019m not involved with any club or national team, but I feel a strong desire to groom young talents at the grassroots and teach them the basics of the game,\u201d said Ikhana, a 1980 Africa Cup of Nations winner and 2003 CAF Champions League-winning coach with Enyimba.<\/p>\n<p>He emphasized that the academy is part of his effort to give back to society by nurturing young talents early.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s going to be challenging, but if you guide them early on the right path, it benefits both the players and the society,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n<p>Ikhana, 73, has had an illustrious coaching career with top clubs including Enyimba, Sharks, and Kano Pillars, and also managed Nigeria\u2019s U23 team, the Olympic Eagles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Oluwamayowa Fakande &nbsp; Former Super Eagles defender and coach, Kadiri Ikhana, MON, has announced plans to launch a grassroots football academy for children aged 8 to 12 in Auchi, Edo State, in August 2025. Speaking from his hometown, Ikhana revealed that the Kadiri Ikhana Football Academy will begin with 60 players across the U8, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":67178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67177","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\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67179,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67177\/revisions\/67179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}