The president of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), Alhaji Ibrahim Gusau, has paid glowing tributes to the Nigeria Pitch Awards, a football award platform that has consistently rewarded excellence in the country’s football industry.
He gave the remarks on Monday during a press conference organised by the organisers of the Nigeria Pitch Awards to thank its college of voters for their confidence in the process.
Gusau, who was represented by NFF director of communications, Ademola Olajire, said the football body will continue to support the project of its integrity and credibility.
“The NFF is given support to this particular project because of its transparency, accountability, integrity and credibility of the process all along, I can attest to that. The work the SIAO partners are doing is wonderful with just one uniform college of voters year in year out and there has never been any controversy about it,” Olajiri said.
Earlier, the president of Nigeria Pitch Award, Mr Shina Philips, said the pitch award, from inception was moulded by core values of transparency, credibility and integrity and for 10 years, none of the award decisions have been controversial.
“From inception, our intention was to create an award platform that has a unique character of its own; a character moulded by our core values of transparency, credibility and integrity. To achieve this, we have followed a carefully laid out award process which brings together a college of voters comprising some of Nigeria’s most knowkledgeable, experienced and professional sport journalists and an independent collation body.
“I would like to state that as organisers, we are very proud of and deeply appreciative of our college of voters which included many of you present in this hall. We owe it to you that in the last ten years of the Nigeria Pitch Award, none of our award decisions have been controversial,” Philips said.
He said the Nigeria Pitch Award was designed to outlive the founders and squarely put the responsibility of deciding the winners in the hands of professional journalists with years of experience, knowledge and expertise in the reporting and analysing football.
“The award process is designed to be sustainable in such a way that it can become our generation’s legacy to our children. This is why the award process was designed to transient organisers personal influence. We are sure that our college of voters will always make the best possible decisions in the interest of our football.”
Super Eagles forward, Victor Osimhen, was voted the Striker of the Year and King of the Pitch for 2024, starves off competition from teammate, Victor Boniface, Robert Mizo of Bayelsa United and Emeka Obiora of Enyimba International FC to win the award for third straight year, making him the first player to achieve this feat on the platform of the prestigious Nigeria Pitch Awards.
Asisat Oshoala was voted the Queen of the Pitch ahead of Rasheedat Ajibade of Atlético de Madrid Femenino and Chiamaka Nnadozi, the Paris FC Goalkeeper.
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