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This
year’s edition of the All Stars Women Football Championship has been
described as disappointing by observers because of the low turnout
being witnessed.

The championship,
which has been organised by the Amalgamation of Nigerian Women Football
Club Coaches for 11 years, experienced a low turnout for both players
and spectators alike.

According to Joy
Etim, coach and proprietor of Puma FC, “The turnout this year has been
very poor. It is the lowest we have ever experienced. Not only is there
a decline in the number of fans around, the girls are also not here.

Before, after we
have played all the preliminaries, we get enough girls to make 20
teams, now let us hope we get about five teams”.

Conflict in schedule

The absence of the
women who are competing has been attributed to conflict in schedule. “I
think many of the girls went for trials to be able to play in the
League and got stuck at the respective places when the NFF (Nigerian
Football Federation) decided to postpone the start of the league. You
know most of these women are struggling and who knows what sacrifices
they made to get to the trials”, says Okunwa Ogunbor, former Super
Falcons and National Institute for Sports (NIS) trained coach.

Not deterred

Etim has however vowed that such setbacks will not discourage them from organising the championship.

“This is happening
for the first time and we hope that we would not face the same thing
next year. Last year, a girl even came from the UK to play. If I had
invited her this year and she came to meet such a poor arrangement
would she be happy?

This has been going
on for 11 years, it was started by us (women coaches) and we will do
everything in our capacity to see it remains because this is our way of
giving back”.

One way the championship can be moved forward is for sponsorship to improve.

“Some of us coaches
went to some of these corporate organisations for help, but they have
been turning up this way and that, we are not sure of what is going on.
Whatever it is they want us to do, they should just tell us and we
would do it,” Etim explains further. She went ahead to appreciate the
concern of the Lagos State Sports Council (LSSC).

This year’s edition
of the championship is supported by the LSSC. Chairman of the council,
Agboola Dabiri, has promised that the women would be kitted by the
council from the quarter-final stage. “Women football has not enjoyed
the support it deserves despite the honour it has brought to the
country. It is important that corporate bodies support them”.

Finals of the tournament, scheduled for January 22nd is expected to
have Abimbola Fashola, the wife of the Lagos State governor, in
attendance.