There is some sort of confusion in Abuja over the hosting of the inaugural ASF Open Championship which has been scheduled to serve off on Thursday, 23 November, 2023.
Nigeria Tennis Live gathered that the tournament is yet to be sanctioned by Engr. Dayo Akindoju, the President of the Nigeria Tennis Federation (NTF).
In a bid to get more details about the tournament, our correspondent had asked the NTF President if the event was an annual tournament, and for how long the federation had been working to get the tournament out.
“Was this something that had been planned long before now or it just came out of the blue? How do you feel about this new tournament, seeing that we couldn’t have a lot of them this year? Is it going to be an annual event? Like, did the organizers sign any MoU to that effect?” our correspondent had asked.
But the President responded that he had not met with the sponsor of the ASF tournament neither had he sanctioned the event as at Tuesday, 21 November, 2023.
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“Like I told you before. The SG is the one following up with this event. I have never met the sponsor nor have we sanctioned this event as at today.
“I gave some basic terms that must be met before we can sanction and it has not been met yet. I await their response through the SG,” he explained.
Nigeria Tennis Live quickly asked Makpa Aliyu, Secretary of the Federation, what the situation was and why the federation had yet to sanction a tournament billed to serve off on Thursday, 23 November, 2023.
His response, as at Monday, 20 November, was: “Please, we are still discussing with the sponsors. Whatever decision will be finalized and communicated before the close of work today.”
Our correspondent waited till the end of the day and reached out to the Secretary on the morning of Tuesday, 21 November, to confirm if the conclusions had been made, but he did not respond to messages sent to him.
In the afternoon, also, Nigeria Tennis Live reached out to Mr. Aliyu, to know if the details had been concluded and if the NTF had sanctioned the event and even though he responded at this time, it was still the same situation.
He replied: “Oga, we are still on it. We are having a meeting at 4pm today.. when it’s done we will communicate.”
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Officials and players have already started contacting Nigeria Tennis Live to find out updates about the ASF competition as they had not gotten any feedback from the competition’s organizers.
And feelers from Abuja have it that no activity has started yet concerning the competition, whether registration or preparation for the competition.
Reports reaching our correspondent also have it that players already traveled to Abuja for the competition, despite this development ongoing within the federation.
As at the time of filing this report, there was no concrete response from the NTF Secretary about the competition being approved to run by the President.
Messages sent to confirm the details of the meeting were also not responded to by Mr. Aliyu, the NTF Secretary-General.
1 Comment
While you are this back and forth about competitions; Providus Bank Mr. Walter has been busy fixing courts at the national stadium and helping players for years ; someone needs to appeal to him for Providus bank to give us at least one junior, senior and even wheelchair