By Albert Akota
Former Super Falcons’ Head Coach, Eucharia Uche, has declared her support for the Aisha Buhari Cup, saying that with the tournament, future is assured for Nigerian women and the girl-child.
In an interview on Thursday, Uche, who led the Falcons at the 2011 FIFA World Cup finals in Germany, said the invitational tournament with the theme Playing For Good under the Futured Assured Programme of the Aisha Buhari Foundation, is a project capable of taking the Nigerian girl-child and the women folks generally to greater heights in all endeavours of life.
“I give kudos to Her Excellency the First Lady for putting her weight behind women football in Africa. We just pray that more positive support like this continue to come for the gender game. Women football has come to stay; there is no going back,” Eucharia said.
She added: “For the Future Assured Programme, this is the right step in the right direction, because over the years, women and the girl-child have been poorly treated and marginalised in Nigeria and in Africa. And for women football, you know that, most of the talented players are from very poor homes.
These are the ones who were fortunate to be discovered to become in the long run club players, national team players and international stars, who ended up becoming the bread winners of their families and even legends in the game, while a large percentage of the girl-child who were not discovered to play football and other women sports, found themselves on the streets doing all sorts things we may not want to talk about here.
“If well propagated and messages disseminated across Nigeria and Africa during the invitational tournament, the days of seeing the girl-child stray into the streets unguided will soon be over.
The girl-child and women can be put on the right pedestal early enough to discover their talents in various spheres of life, such that would make them useful to their families, Nigeria, Africa and the world at large. This is quite commendable by the First Lady.”
For the tournament proper, Eucharia admonished Nigerian players to take the competition serious, countenancing each match as the Final.
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