Miss Football Nigeria, new beauty pageantry targeted at rallying support for local football leagues has been launched and auditions currently ongoing nationwide.
Mr Oscar David-Kalu, Director, Business and Strategy of Queen Of Nigeria Football,organiser of the event, told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday at the Abuja audition that the initiative was to maximizes opportunities in football offers.
According to him, Nigeria was yet to harness the potential it has from her football-loving populace, as over patronage of foreign football leagues was costing the nation a lot resources.
“Miss Football Nigeria Project has been carefully developed and recently rebranded to deliberately sensitize and mobilize the Nigerian youth towards participating and investing in our local football.
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“They need to participate in football not just as a means of recreation and entertainment, but a viable investment option.
“Football has become one of the top three global sports that command hundreds of millions of addicted fans and followers in more than two third of the countries of the world combined.
“In Nigeria the addiction is so strong that football is, as it stands today, the only unifying factor that dismantles the barriers of ethnicity, religion, class or political divide.
“It knows no age limit in terms of passion and viewership, as reliable research findings shows that, out of the about 200,000,000 Nigerians, over 80,000,000, accounting for over 40% of the population, are passionate followers of football.
“Unfortunately, here in Nigeria, much has not been achieved in taking positive advantage of the huge demography and attendant addiction for football by the young people to promote national development, job and wealth Creation,” he said.
David-Kalu explained that that the project, among other things, aims to sensitise football loving Nigerian youths on the economic implications of over-patronizing foreign football matches at the expense of our domestic leagues.
According to him, the project is being organised in partnership with the National Youth Council of Nigeria, National Association of Nigerian Students and Nigerian Youth Parliament.
Others partners included Youth Sports Federation of Nigeria, Sports Writers Association of Nigeria, Nigerian Football Federation and Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Development, among others.
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NAN reports that young female foothball lovers came in their numbers for the FCT audition to pick a space in the completion for the coveted Queen of Nigerian Football Crown.
Mr Rikki Nwajiofor, the project Director of production and Entertainment, told NAN that auditions will hold at state levels, which would produced a contestants each from a state.
He explained that 20 contestants are expected to be selected at the Abuja audition, who will then compete for one person to emerge.
“The overall winner in Abuja will meet other contestant selected from all the states at the grand finale later in the year to produce the 2019 Miss Football Nigeria”, he said.(NAN)
