Lagos State Basketball Association (LSBBA) is set to organise a Basketball League for clubs across the State. This is part of the initiatives announced during the first Annual General Meeting of the new board of the LSBBA held at the Molade Okoya Thomas Hall, Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos in Friday.
Others include: certification programmes for coaches and referees, organisation of a basketball competitions across local governments, schools and sourcing for corporate sponsorship for the growth of the game in the state.
Vice Chairman LSBBA, Olumide Oyedeji spoke about how the board intends to develop basketball from the grassroots through corporate sponsorship and dedication.
“We want to take basketball to the next level, improve infrastructure and organisation and have a better league that everybody will appreciate. We want to take basketball to every community, local government, environment to show that basketball is here to stay in Lagos and make it attractive for both national and international competitions.
“It’s about hard work and communication, branding and looking for corporate sponsorship so we just have to sell our commodity right,” Oyedeji told www.aclsports.com
The former D’Tigers captain assured that the state competition will not in any way affect or clash with the national league programme.
“It’s going to be a Lagos State thing so when the national league starts, there will be no clash we will have to adjust our system and structure. We are not in competition with anyone and we just want to make Lagos State great and make sure the youths are occupied to make themselves better.”
Chairperson Lagos State Basketball Association, Barbara Harper said, “The AGM will be done annually because it is an integral part of our activities. We will also have an audit account next year because when we assumed office we met nothing in our coffers.
“I want to say we have started on a good note as our female and male teams retuned with a silver and bronze medal respectively at the National Sports Festival in December.”
A date and sponsor for the State Basketball League will be announced soon by the board of the Lagos State Basketball Association.
In addition, a new Lagos State Basketball Association logo was unveiled during the AGM by the board and the Executive Chairman Lagos State Sports Commission, Kweku Tandoh.
