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  Egyptian top side, Smouha FC, have completed the signing of former Al Ahly’s Nigerian winger Junior Ajayi on a three-year deal, from Libyan side Al-Nasr Benghazi. The 26-year-old signed for Al Ahly in 2016 from Tunisia’s CS Sfaxien, after having won the Olympic bronze medal with Nigeria. He made a total of 161 games for the club, scoring 41 goals while providing 30 assists, and became a fan favourite, having guided the club to two CAF Champions Leagues, four league titles, two Egypt Cups, and two Egypt Super Cups. Moreover, Ajayi was part of the Al Ahly team that won the 2021 Club World Cup bronze medal, netting a penalty against Palmeiras in the third-placed playoff. As his short deal with Al Nasr came to an end this July, Ajayi will now return to Egypt through Smouha on a free transfer after signing a three-year contract. Ajayi becomes Smouha’s third summer signing after deals for Asmadat Abou Kheir defender Mahmoud El Malek and Ahmed Hussein from El-Nasr.

Many years ago, the likes of Mouka Foam, Bournvita, Coca Cola, First Bank, Milo, Indomie, Globacom, Mtn, Airtel and the others, held sway when it comes to sports sponsorship. These Multinational companies were either sponsoring a sporting event or partnering with a brand.  Nigeria sports, especially football swam in millions as corporate organisation's struggled for space to advertise their goods and services.  However, in the last one decade or so, the frenzy and the excitement to do more, has reduced drastically as most of these companies have been hit by the harsh economic realities of the moment.  The world economy has suffered greatly from the rise in price of petrol and gas whicn has seriously affected global businesses.  Then, there is also the uncertainties caused by the recent outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, the war between Ukraine and Russia among others.  Back home in Nigeria, bad government policies, corruption and misplacement of priorities have ...

Contrary to wide-spread media reports on Nigeria finishing 18th on the medal table, official medal table from World Athletics has confirmed Nigeria finished 13th on the overall medal placement, and third best placed country from Africa. Team Nigeria picked up a valuable Gold in the 100m Hurdles even, with winner Tobi Amusan smashing the World Record in the process. Also Olympic Bronze medallist, Ese Brume picked up a silver medal in the Long Jump event, improving on her Bronze at the last Olympics and last World Athletics Championship in Doha. For the African representatives, Nigeria finished in the top three, behind Kenya and Ethiopia with Uganda finishing in fourth place.

Nigeria left her best for the last day of the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, Oregon, United States of America by winning a gold and a silver medal. Tobi Amusan broke the 100m hurdles World Record in the semi finals with an astonishing 12.12s and followed up with a (+2.5)wind assisted 12.06s in the final. The time in the final would not be recognised as it was well over the legal +2.0 wind assist allowed in Athletics. Before then, she had run 12.40s in the heat to set a new African Record. Amusan has now become Nigeria's first ever World Champion in athletics. Team Nigeria would go on to celebrate another podium finish in the Long Jump, with Ese Brume's 7.02m leap. Brume won a bronze medal at the 2019 World Championships and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Reacting to Nigeria's late rally for medals in Oregon and the country's best performance ever at the Championships, Sports Minister Sunday Dare said these heartwarming feats will herald a new dawn for Nigerian at...

The first batch of Team Nigeria athletes to the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham left the country on Friday. A group left through the Murtala Mohammed International Airport in Lagos while the other left through the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport in Abuja. The Honourable Minister of Youth and Sports Development, Sunday Dare, the President of the Nigeria Olympic Committee(NOC) Engineer Habu Gumel and the Chef de Mission to the Games, Dr Simon Ebhojiaye were on hand to see off the team that left through Abuja. The Minister charged the athletes to be focused, disciplined and conscious of the fact that they are carrying the aspirations and hopes of over 200 million Nigerians. "I want to urge you to be disciplined," Dare told the athletes, "if you have any complaints, the Ministry has outlined how they can be resolved. There are just three layers for conflict resolution now and by the time you are getting to that third layer, then you are getting to me." The Min...

Nigeria’s Minister for Youth and Sports Development, Hon. Sunday Dare has stressed that Nigeria went through an exhaustive process to scientifically analyse and determine the nine sports that would fly the flag of the country at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.  In a chat with newsmen in Abuja, the Minister said, “We are putting our best foot forward and we decided that based on limited resources and very scientific analysis, we would want to leverage on the sports in which we have our sports men and women amongst the top 10 or 15 in the world. “If in a particular sport we are 128th in the world and the goal of going to the Commonwealth Games is for podium performance and not rehearsals, we won’t go where we are ranked that low.    We brought out all the statistics and crunched the numbers to pick the sports we are strong in, so we are going with a smaller team, but to compete in a big way”. Nigeria will be competing in Athletics, Wrestling, Boxing, Karate, Table Ten...

The Honourable Minister of Youth and Sports Development Sunday Dare has reiterated that welfare of athletes has remained a priority for him since assuming office in 2019. In a chat with pressmen during an interactive session in Abuja, Dare said, "Before I assumed office, I knew that welfare of athletes will always be key to their performances. This was why I immediately introduced the Athletes' Welfare Scheme, where past athletes who brought glory to Nigeria in different sports were considered for reward. This did not exclude those who have transited to the great beyond like Late Rashidi Yekini, Samuel Okwaraji, Ali Jeje and others. "We needed to recognise what they did for Nigeria and also further restate our commitment to the line in our National Anthem that says, 'the labour of of our heroes past, shall never be in vain'. "Again we celebrated and awarded 60 Sports Icons as a way of telling the heroes of tomorrow that their successes will also be remembered...