18th April, 2012
As the National U-19 Championships is around the corner, President of Handball Federation of Nigeria, HFN, Dauda Yusuf, has revealed that the body is set to use the new talents discovered at the tourney to beef up the senior national teams.
The tourney, which was earlier scheduled for 23 February to 4 March, but had to be postponed due to the security situation in the country, will now hold from 19 to 29 April at the Gingiya Stadium, Sokoto.
The HFN boss said that the technical department of the federation intends to use the tourney to discover young talents that can be promoted into the senior national teams.
“There is need for us to strengthen the senior national side by ejecting younger players into the teams. What we plan to do is to look out for new talents at the championships and then nurture them and draft them into the team,” Yusuf revealed.
He said: “We hope to discover a lot of new talents at the championships who will be useful for the national teams in the future. The technical department of the federation will be on hand to look out for these players that will give a good account of themselves at the tourney.”
The competition is packaged by the HFN in conjuction with the Sokoto State Government and is expected to feature both male and female teams from the 36 states of the federation.
Each participating state is expected to pay N15,OOO affiliation fee, N10,000 registration fee and players and officials’ licences, which is N750 per player and N1, 000 per official.
—Bimbo Ajayi