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Nigerian Football

NFF to Unveil Federation Cup Sponsors

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BY GODWIN ENAKHENA.

 

The oldest football competition in Nigeria, the Federation Cup, is set to get a new sponsor. When the final of the competition is played in July in Lagos, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) will unveil the sponsor for the once glamorous cup competition. The event has not had a sponsor for almost a decade since the last sponsors, Coca-Cola pulled out.

This much was disclosed by NFF  Director, Communications, Ademola Olajire while addressing over 50million journalists on a sports platform, “Family United By Sports” who questioned the presence of some NFF board members led by the president, Amaju Pinnick at the Wembley Stadium to watch the finals of the FA Cup between Arsenal and Chelsea played on Saturday in England.

Olajire said in his response to a post that seems to task the NFF on the need to make the Federation Cup as glamorous and well packaged like that of England.

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“Something good is coming the way of the Federation Cup. June is the month. That is why the draw for the national competition is on hold for now; the new sponsors must be part of it.”

The Federation Cup which began in 1945 as Governor’s Cup. Following changes in the Nigerian Constitution, the Annual General Meeting of the then Nigeria Football Association (NFA) on February 28, 1955 adopted the “Nigerian Challenge Cup” as the official name of the competition.

Another change of name was effected in 1999 when Coca-Cola became the title sponsors. The competition became “Coca-Cola FA Cup”.

On June 3, 2009, Ademola Olajire, then Chief Media Officer of the NFF, through a press release revealed the change from FA Cup to Federation Cup while announcing the draw for the final competition of the 2009 edition. No dates have been announced for the finals of the 2017 edition.

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Kunle Solaja is the author of landmark books on sports and journalism as well as being a multiple award-winning journalist and editor of long standing. He is easily Nigeria’s foremost soccer diarist and Africa's most capped FIFA World Cup journalist, having attended all FIFA World Cup finals from Italia ’90 to Qatar 2022. He was honoured at the Qatar 2022 World Cup by FIFA and AIPS.

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