The renowned business mogul and the President, Ikeja chamber of industries commerce and agriculture, Doctor Edward Olutoke, has hinted the reason is staging the first ‘Above 50 Football Competition’ in Nigeria.
Olutoke, while answering questions on Sport Splash on Lagos Television yesterday said’
‘We discovered that when people attained the age of 50 and above in this part of the world, they felt isolated and distanced their selves from the society, they believed that attained old age they are not useful to the society, many of them died of boredom.
However, we took it upon ourselves that we must do something meaningful to draw the minds of our elders back to the society, to attain old age is not a curse or stigma, as we all know that football played significant role in our society, we are using Above 50 Football Competition to integrate our old citizens back to the society and reward them massively.
I’m glad to tell you know that we have prepared fully well for the competition and the feedback we are getting from our old citizens and other stake holders in the industry is awesome. Some of our ex-footballers are going to participate in the competition and we have whooping prices for the winners.
Let me also inform you that, Doctor Rafiu Ladipo is the chairman of the competition’. He noted.
While responding to the question on what modality used to determine the real age of the participants, Olutoke, said, every participant must tender their national identity cards and International passport for verification, we are highly transparent in all we do.
Olutoke also hinted that foreigners from other continent are also going to participate in the competition. ‘Our future projection for the competition is to make it a world cup competition and this is coming first time from Nigeria. He concluded