Nigeria Content Online

Arrangements are in
place to make the Friends of Rugby, Lagos Rugby Union League a national
affair from April 2011 so as to accommodate other players across the
country. Ntiense Williams, secretary of the FOR who disclosed this,
said: “Friends of Rugby has been inundated with calls from stakeholders
from other parts of the country to assist them with the organisational
techniques and funding of their rugby league programmes to be as
successful as the Lagos Rugby Union League, which is in its fifth year.
The chairman and board members have been moved by the requests and will
be magnanimous enough to encourage meaningful development of the game
in the country.”

He also added that
the FOR would be happy to assist and would be putting finishing touches
to the arrangements with the Northern Rugby League organisers, and
Rugby League programme to be established in the Niger-Delta region in
the 2011 Rugby Season.

“The National Rugby
Union League programme of activities for the season will culminate in a
national rugby union league play-off at the end of the regional
Leagues,” he said.

The league format
would be such that six teams from each region (Lagos, Northern and
Niger-Delta) would play separately but simultaneously. At the end of
the league season, the champions who emerge from each of the three
regions would play each other for the national champion to emerge.

Williams gave the
reason for this arrangement, “We may not be able to provide logistics
for say, moving from the North to the Southwest but at least if we can
for now cater for other things we are satisfied,” he said.

This is an innovation by FOR to assist in the overall development of rugby in the country.

Stakeholders meeting not a waste of time

In a related
development, Williams has expressed sadness that the Nigerian Rugby
Football Federation considers the stakeholders meeting a waste of time.

“The stakeholders’
meeting though organised by the FOR was actually for everyone involved
in rugby. When the people one is leading decide they want a change, are
they not entitled to ask for it? Anyway, we have not presented the NRFF
with documentation for our request. Maybe if they see it, they would
understand better.

Williams was reacting to the statement made by Richard Ajayi,
president of the NRFF, on a radio station on Wednesday morning. In the
interview, Ajayi stated: “The FOR should take their grievances to the
National Sports Commission, which put up the federation for concession;
they should not waste their time.”