Twelve clubs are taking part in this year’s Comptroller General of Customs, CGC Volleyball League which begins this weekend at the Package B of the MKO Abiola Stadium, Abuja.
The CG of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi who was represented by NCS, Head of Sports, Samuel Onikeku said the CG has taken this year’s edition a step higher, to develop and encourage Volleyball.
Adeniyi said he does not only encourage Volleyball but other sports, pointing out that incentives for Volleyballers has been increased to make them smile.
He revealed that the subsidy for teams this year has been improved upon from N300,000 last year to N500,000 for each team, pointing out that “subsidy for the teams for this first phase is N24m, and the final phase will be the same again’
The CG promised that ‘As the competition is going on, more and more incentives will continue to roll in.”
The CG representative, Onikeku, who serves as the Sports Secretary and leads the NCS Sports Unit, said they are going to maintain the same prize money of N5m, N3m, N2m and N.5m for the first, second, third and fourth positions respectively.
According to him, “You can remember last year, the CGC decided to sponsor the Premier League to put smiles on the faces of the Volleyballers in Nigeria, and at the end of the Championship, the first position went home with N5m, the second and third got N3m, N2m and fourth N500,000.
Recall last year, on behalf of the Nigeria Customs Service, the CG decided to bring the African Volleyball Club Championship to Nigeria, attracting almost all the most important clubs to the country, and the wife of the President, Senator Oluremi Tinubu was at the opening and closing ceremonies, with the championship attracting other competitions to Nigeria to show that Nigeria was very safe.”
In the meantime, the 2nd Vice President, who also doubles as the League Management Committee, LMC Chairperson, Nkechi Nzogwu said Volleyball was fast growing and trying to catch up with football and Basketball. S
Nzogwu however said they are going to make use of only the indoor facility for this year’s championship in order to help the players improve.
According to her “By watching each other, the players will learn and improve better. “As long as we put the two players in one hall last year, we equally want to do the same this year for the benefit of the players and teams.”
