Abia State government’s policy of running sport as business has begun to attract investors to the emerging sport industry driven by private and public partnership(PPP).
To this end, an investor, Fifty 1 Alliance, has partnered government to create the Abia State Football Supalig 5-a-Side Championship which would kickoff on May 7, 2025 with eight participating clubs.
Speaking at the official launch of the tournament at the Fifty 1 Alliance Sports Centre, Umuafor Aba, the Chairman of the sports investment/promotion firm, Mr. Dike Dimiri, said that Abia was ripe for a thriving sports industry.
“There is something enormous going on in sports in Abia. And I ask sports investors to key into the Abia State sports industry,” he said.
He noted that the Abia Governor, Alex Otti has done a lot to encourage investors to come to the state hence his decision to invest in sports and encourage other investors to follow suit.
Dimiri explained that though eight clubs have been slated to participate in the Supalig 5-a-Side Football tournament, adjustments would be made if the required number did not register before the commencement.
He stated that matches would be played on natural grass every Wednesday and would run for 12 weeks, adding that “it is better for us to play on natural surface than on synthetic (artificial) surface”.
Not only that, the organisers have also made arrangements to broadcast the tournament live on radio and stream it on You-Tube with “all participating clubs getting maximum exposure”.
The Fifty 1 Alliance has already put down N10 million prize money for the tournament with the overall winner expected to go home with N3.5 million while every team would be rewarded according to their ranking on the table.
The Alliance boss said that the tournament which is a private-public project was purposely organised as part of efforts to grow the Abia economy by attracting corporate sponsorships in sports.
He announced that a cycling tournament and Abia Sports Business Conference would come up in due course to further boost the sport industry in the state.
“We want to develop our sports people to participate in international competitions,” Dimiri said, adding that Fifty 1 Alliance was committed to achieving this goal for the benefit of all stakeholders.
Abia State Commissioner for Sports and Youth Development, Mr. Nwaobilor Ananaba was on hand to launch the 5-a-Side Championship and received the cheque for the N10 million prize money from the Fifty 1 Alliance.
He commended the Alliance Chairman for investing in Abia’s sport industry, describing him as “a dogged entrepreneur and lover of sports”.
Ananaba assured investors, sports people and enthusiasts that Abia was fully determined to actualise its goal of making sports a thriving business as obtainable in Europe and America where “athletes make tons of money”.
He outlined some areas government was looking into in its quest to create sports industry, including manufacturing of sports wear, kits and equipment in Aba, as well as sports broadcasting.
The Sports Commissioner further stated that government was not only seeing the potentials of sports as a revenue yielding sector but also as employment generating sector.
According to him, “we are interested in grassroots sports, taking our youths from the
hinterlands and developing them to become international sports stars”.
“What they do in Europe, we can do it here. It’s the same sports, only that we have not developed and popularised our own,” he said.