Football
Nigeria Professional Football League
(NPFL) club, Rivers United FC have commenced preparations for the 2016/17
football season.
Players and officials converged at the
Yakubu Gowon Stadium, the home ground of the club, on Tuesday morning for the
team’s first training session ahead of the new season.
The session lasted for exactly 90
minutes and was supervised the chief coach, Willy Udube.
Rivers State Sports Commissioner,
Honourable Boma Iyaye, who watched the session and charged players and
officials to maintain ‘a high level of discipline’ ahead of a potentially
demanding season.
“On behalf of the sponsor of the team,
the Rivers State Government, I want to welcome you back from your vacation.
“However, this is not time for hard work
and I want to charge you all to realize that you are ambassadors of Rivers
State and Nigeria as you will be representing this country in the 2017 Caf
Champions League.
“I urge you all to display a high level
of discipline and focus as you look to do Rivers State and Nigeria proud in the
upcoming season,” he said.
Responding, club captain, Festus Austine
promised that the players would work hard always and they look to justify the
confidence reposed in them.
“We want to thank you Honourable
Commissioner for your Fatherly advice and also want to use this opportunity to
express our appreciation to the Rivers State Government for the continued
support to the club.
“We will not relent ahead of the new
season as we look to put smiles on the faces of Rivers people and Nigerians in
general,” he said.
Meanwhile, General Manager of the club,
Chief Okey Kpalukwu confirmed that a few of the players are still expected but
assured that there would be a full house by Wednesday.
“I want to urge the few players who have
not yet turned up to do so without any further delay.
“Our time for preparations is quite
short and we will need a full house before the next training session on
Wednesday,” he said.
Rivers United finished in second place
in last season’s NPFL and will represent Nigeria in the 2017 Caf Champions
League.
Leave your comment.
No comments:
Post a Comment