The Benue State Football Association, BSFA has signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU with the Benue State University, Makurdi on balancing sports with education.
Signing the MoU in the office of the Vice Chancellor of the Benue State University, Makurdi on Friday, the Chairman of the Benue State Football Association, Dr Paul Edeh said the partnership was to create opportunities for young athletes particularly in football, to play and also study.
Dr Edeh who noted that the programme was about helping the young football players to enroll in school, while studying and developing their football talents, explained that, “we believe this programme will teach the young players the important life skills on how to manage money and make smart choices for their future”.
The BSFA Chairman while citing instances where players make a lot of money during their active play days and after retirement become bankrupt, disclosed that, “there are footballers who have made millions of money but are broke today, and the reason is because they didn’t go to school to learn the basics on how they can best utilize and manage their funds”.
Dr Edeh listed the provision of new facilities such as the sports lab, First Aid Centre, building of a Digital Content Studio in the school and also to make the university top in sports and education as some of the benefits that the university would derive from the partnership. He said, “the partnership will help the BSU to attract more talented students who love sports and do sports, help the best football players gain admission into the school and to represent the school at top football events”.
He requested the management of the BSU to provide a piece of land for the BSFA within the school, to build a Mini Stadium where they would help the young players grow in football and in education. He stressed that, “my question has always been that why do we have many footballers doing well but when you give them the opportunity to speak, they speak in tongues that are unknown, they sometimes refuse to speak because they didn’t go to the university”.
The BSFA Chairman who assured that they would ensure that what was obtainable in other climes is also replicated at the BSU, said what they needed was collaborative efforts from all the stakeholders, in order for the programme to be a success. He said, “the key players in this MoU are teachers and lecturers who have the responsibility of guiding and supporting the athletes to balance their studies with sports”.
“This programme will nurture talented players and promote grassroots football in Benue State. It will also help to strengthen the Human Kinetics Department of the school by way of the BSFA, bringing in trained coaches that would be training the students”.
He expressed appreciation to the Vice Chancellor, Prof Joe Tor Iorapuu for his wisdom to approve of the partnership and for working in collaboration with the Students Union Government of the BSU, to commence the VC Cup which is an initiative that was endorsed by the BSFA, and donated a giant trophy for the tourney, a set of jerseys, 10 balls and a cash sum of ₦300.000 as prizes for the first and second positions, ₦200.000 and ₦100.000 respectively.
In his response, the VC, Prof Joe Tor Iorapuu who declared that the initiative was very critical in balancing learning with playing football, remarked that, “shame will be on the department of the Human Kinetics if this initiative dies”. “Give this project five years and you will be amazed with the number of grassroots players that will be running to study at the BSU. It is a laudable initiative”.
Prof Iorapuu said, “we joke with what we have and until the day that we discover that we should have been proud of what we have then it would be too late”.
The Vice Chancellor who thanked the BSFA for the initiative, challenged the Human Kinetics Department not to take the initiative as a joke. “We are hopeful that the team will not let us down”
“I want to sincerely thank the BSFA for donating a trophy, footballs and other sporting equipment to the university and also the leadership of the SUG of the BSU”.
He further said, “sports is one of the areas that harmonizes and reduces the energy that when the students don’t exert, they use it for something else”.
