Kwara State has won the 37th edition of the U-16 Ramat Football Competition, which was concluded at the weekend at the Sani Abacha Stadium, Kano.In an entertaining final match watched by a representative of the Chief of Defence Staff, Col. C.K Uwa, representative of the Chief of Naval Staff, Commodore, Sulieman Bello, that of the Inspector General of Police, AIG Abubakar Abdullahi, Coach Tunde Kazeem, Chairman, Directors of Sports in Nigeria and Kano State Commissioner for Sports, Alhaji Kabiru Ado Lakwaya, as well as chairman of Furore Local Government Area, Adamawa State, Muss Jauro Umar, Kwara beat hard fighting Bauchi State by 1-0 to emerge champion of the tournament organized by Youth Sports Federation of Nigeria (YSFON) in memory of the country’s former Head of State. Gen. Muritala Mohammed.
Apart from carting away the giant trophy at the weeklong competition, Kwara also went home with N 100,000, second placed Bauchi got N70, 000, while the third placed team, Rivers went home with N50, 000.
Rivers defeated Kogi State by 1-0 earlier in the day to win the bronze medal. Declaring the tournament closed, National President of YSFON. Dr. Yusuf Gawuna expressed happiness that the tournament, like previous editions, was well attended.
He thanked all the participating teams and officials for making fair play their watchword, promising that the federation would continue to use the championship and similar grassroots competitions to develop Nigerian sports.“I am happy that the competition witnessed a large turnout and no ugly incident was recorded, which is evidence of the good organizational planning of YSFON.
“We will continue to use this tournament to discover talents at the grassroots to help our football grow,” he said.Gawuna, who also doubles as Deputy Governor of Kano State, praised the Kano State government for its consistency in sponsoring the tournament, but he appealed to other states to emulate what Kano State is doing in grassroots sports development.
