FCT NEWS:FCT PICKS CHESS AND FOOTBALL GOLDS, AT NSF

FCT Chess and Football representatives, Friday afternoon picked up the Gold medals for Chess and Football events in the on-going National Sports Festival. With these wins FCT is now placed 7^th on the medal table with 31 medals – 14 Gold’s 5 Silver and 12 Bronze. As the time of compiling this report, Delta State, has won, 214 medals including 106 gold, Rivers 129 medals with 46 gold, and Edo 83 medals including 25 gold. Other members of the elite seven include Akwa Ibom, Kano and Bayelsa States with 56, 54, 83 medals respectively.  Bayelsa with its high medal record, falls behind Kano and Akwa Ibom, because of its less number of gold medals.  

With these laurels, FCT comes only behind such sports power-houses as Delta, Rivers, Edo, Akwa Ibom, Kano and Bayelsa States.  Bayelsa, it must be noted had downed such soccer giants as Lagos State before they were downed by the Unity boy.   

FCT male football team defeated Bayelsa 1 – 0. While Dr. Oluwalasinu Lanre defeated his Anambra State Counterpart to win the gold in the Chess Tournament, Senior Category. Osundinakin Omoyemi won the Chess bronze in the female category.

Speaking to newsmen on the performance of the FCT team, the FCT Sports Director, Mrs. Dilichukwu Onyedinma described the performance of FCT contingents as the reward of the investment of the current FCT Administration in sports and the motivation given by the FCT Minister Malam Muhammad Musa Bello.

She noted that the FCT Minister’s interest in sports is born out of his passion to provide strong platform for youths to excel. She also added that FCT works to be a leader in the promotion of national unity and sees a convergence between sports, National Youth Service Corps and the Federal Capital Territory in the pursuit of these ideals.  

Her words, “That was why, he undertook to co-sponsor the Festival and redeem it from the abeyance into which it had fallen in the last six years.” FCTA she noted, should be commended for accepting to co-sponsor the event at this time in history when the funds are barely there.

She noted that what a FCT has achieved was a great feat, when it is considered that these other states has a huge population and a strong institutions and long history of sports administration.

Cosmas Uzodinma
Chief Press Secretary