{"id":80421,"date":"2025-12-17T05:59:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T05:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=80421"},"modified":"2025-12-17T05:59:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T05:59:05","slug":"ncf-eyes-expansion-of-west-africa-trophy-after-nigerias-title-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/12\/17\/ncf-eyes-expansion-of-west-africa-trophy-after-nigerias-title-defence\/","title":{"rendered":"NCF Eyes Expansion of West Africa Trophy After Nigeria\u2019s Title Defence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Samuel Adeola<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF), Uyi Akpata, has reiterated plans to grow the West Africa Trophy into the biggest cricket tournament in Sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Nigeria successfully defended their title on Sunday in Abuja, defeating Rwanda by 40 runs in the final at the NCF Oval, Moshood Abiola National Stadium. The Yellow Greens had also beaten Rwanda to win the inaugural edition in Lagos in 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking after the final, Akpata said the competition would be expanded from four teams to at least five in the next edition, with a long-term target of eight teams.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is just the beginning. Once we confirm the dates, the tournament will be five times bigger in the next three years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Akpata explained that the event did not hold in 2024 due to a crowded calendar but reaffirmed the federation\u2019s commitment to developing cricket across the region.<\/p>\n<p>The maiden edition in 2023 featured Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Rwanda, while Zambia replaced Ghana in the 2025 tournament, returning to competitive cricket after eight years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Samuel Adeola President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF), Uyi Akpata, has reiterated plans to grow the West Africa Trophy into the biggest cricket tournament in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nigeria successfully defended their title on Sunday in Abuja, defeating Rwanda by 40 runs in the final at the NCF Oval, Moshood Abiola National Stadium. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":80422,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80421","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\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80423,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80421\/revisions\/80423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}