SUPREMACY CUP 2024: This Year’s Best Players Will Win 2028 Olympics’ Football Gold For Nigeria – Hajji Gafar Predicts
Lagos State Football Association (LSFA) chairman, Hajji Gafar Olawale Liameed has predicted that the best players discovered at this year’s Supremacy Cup will win gold for Nigeria at the 2028 Olympic Games.
Liameed, who is fondly called ‘The Lion,’ gave the prediction after watching Beyond Limit Football Academy of Ikenne defeat defending champions, Dino FC via penalties in Saturday’s final at Mobolaji Johnson Arena in Onikan, Lagos Island.
Earlier on, in the third place match at same venue, Charlesann FC also won via penalties against Liameed’s club, 36 Lion FC, but the LSFA boss was not biased in his general assessment of the 10-team competition.
He reflected with an open mind and told sports247.ng with emphatic tone, “The biggest gains from this year’s competition are youth growth and a bright future for Nigeria.
“I believe, from this tournament, the selected players … 17, 18, 19 years old … will get Nigeria to the final of the 2028 Olympics.
“We want to see them grow from U19 to U20 to U23 and, in the next three years, present them to the national team from their various clubs that they will be selected to join abroad.
“We want to see them develop properly and win gold for Nigeria at the Olympics in 2028. That’s my vision.”
The amiable football promoter and administrator went on to buttress his analysis of the competition’s success with how the most youthful team in the contest eventually emerged as champions.
“One thing that was also special about this year’s competition is that we saw more youth players in the matches.
“We witnessed a 14-year-old boy going head-to-head, bone-to-bone, fire-for-fire, and minute-by-minute with 19-year-old boys.
“There is a popular saying from a coach of Remo Stars, Dan Ogunmodede, who says, ‘If you are good enough, you are old enough.’
“I take that from him all the time, and I use it everywhere I go. I always spread the message that is contained in those words.
“It worked even more in this competition; as it was the junior boys that lifted the trophy. They are young, but they are old enough, and they won the cup,” Liameed stressed.
He, however, ended on a jocular note with a verdict that changing the competition from an annual affair to twice a year would be too expensive for him to host.
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