City Sports Africa announces big plans to reach 10 million youth through sports over the next 10 years
After five years of postively impacting young lives through sports in all parts of Nigeria, City Sports are on a mission to expand the operation to the entire continent of Africa.
These plans were revealed for the first time to the general public at a press conference where City Sports Africa bigwigs reflected on the successes of the last five years while offering projections for the next decade.
City Sports Africa CEO, Shola Opaleye reflected on the success of the last five years, speaking to reporters on how the company has grown, "We now develop at three major levels, grassroots, academy and professional. We started the City Sports Football Club in the Nigerian league, we play in the Division 3 of the Nigerian league that’s the NLO 1. We played our first season almost four months ago now which means that we offer all levels of development for those who want to play football even up until signing professional contracts with teams abroad and things like that."
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"Looking back five years ago there were two years of Covid in between those five years but we’re still standing like this so we’re definitely grateful and we want to celebrate five years and at the same time we’re looking at the excitement of the next 10 years, so this is now the step forward," he said.
Shola Opaleye proceeded to reveal his plans for the next decade, "Right now we’re looking at the next 10 years, what does 10 years mean to City Sports people? 10 years means 10 million youths which means every year we aim to reach 1 million youths."
"We understand how it has worked, we know that there’s a lot more work because we get requests, we do a program and we get requests from literally every other country in Africa. People asking ‘Why are you guys not in Ghana, Cameroon, Zimbabwe?’We understand that the need for our product goes beyond Nigeria and we can only do that one step at a time because it requires a lot to do that."
"There are programs through our community department that we’re meeting with a thousand youth every weekend, scouting and identifying talent to bring them into the mainstream but the main objective is to engage them and give them a sense of purpose."
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"There are programs through our community department that we’re meeting with a thousand youth every weekend, scouting and identifying talent to bring them into the mainstream but the main objective is to engage them and give them a sense of purpose."
"And it’s not all of them that play football at the end of the day but then there’s vocational training, there’s scholarships that you put them into school and all that so we’re saying starting 2025 we want to try and make that time 8 because the goal is 1 million a year."
"What that means in terms of activities and how we’re even going to get the funding for that, yes people pay for some of our services but the money that people pay in terms of fees will not scratch the surface for 1 million."
"But since we have also decided that our slogan is ‘City Sports for all’ meaning sports is not just for the elite, sport is for everybody who wants to play and can play because through sports you can become anything in life so I’m not really interested in those that will become the next Messi or Ronaldos, I’m interested in those that want to play sports that through sports they will be what they want to become in life."
Destiny Agbanimu, the events promoter of City Sports Africa stepped in to explain the financial side of executing the vision for the next decade as laid out by Shola Opaleye, "We came up with this initiative to drive and foster quality sports development programs for people in the grassroots and here’s how we’re going to get the money."
"To achieve this goal is very tedious, it’s going to be a very hard work but then we have good hands on deck, we have the right people in place, good strategic partners we have been speaking with across Africa, remember we are City Sports for Africa and we leave nobody behind."
"The money we are currently fundraising from both private and public institutions and companies that are responding well. We want to use sports to create peace. In the next 10 years, we want to train 10 million people, we need good hands, we need support, we need sponsors across Africa not just for Nigeria alone, globally we need sponsors trusting the idea.It’s all about the vision, if you understand the vision and are able to resonate with the idea of the vision, we will bring hands together and achieve the main goal."
City Sports Africa client service officer, Amaka Madubuko spoke on the journey so far, "It’s been very very rewarding, in the past five years City Sports has grown so much from where we started to what we are now. City Sports started in December 2019 as Mr Shola said with just football and 15 students."
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"In the past five years, we’ve seen over a thousand students, five different sports in football, basketball, swimming, tennis and athletics and over nine programs. We have special programs that cater to every student no matter their skill level in all the sports."
"We also have the performance academy which is under football and basketball. This is an academy that prepares every student in the program for collegiate scholarship or professional contracts..We also have the residency program which is for people that require accommodation, people from far and wide, different cities and even outside of Nigeria that want to part of what City Sports is offering."
"We have the talent trials as well where people come in to try their talent to see their levels and which programs to put them in. Some people come to us just to know the level they’re in in any sport they’re offering. We put out a performance review, we send it to them."
Only time will tell if City Sports are eventually able to achieve all they plan to in the next 10 years but if the previous five are anything to go by, then you can be rest assured this is just the beginning.
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