By Chigozie Chukwuleta
Anambra state suddenly became a hot bride of beach soccer courtesy of one man’s desire to make an impact. The state hosted the just concluded Nigeria Beach Soccer League with Anambra state team qualifying for the Super four in it’s first appearance. In this interview with the giant masquerade behind the beach soccer success stories in Anambra state, Chief Victor Mmadubuko gave insight into his journey in the sand game, the league, others.
Excerpts………
Q. How would you describe the four day Nigeria Beach Soccer League Second Round hosted by Anambra Beach Soccer Association?
A. Well first of all I think it has gone really well, I wanted to thank our sponsors, Innoson Motors for coming through for us, I also want to thank OTC group, Chikason for making such a difference, they all helped make it a successful event. Anambra is unbeaten in this tournament, straight 5/5 and I am happy about that, very glad about the support we got from the national, the president Mahmoud Hadejia. So overall I am very grateful. Also the state has been very supportive, the governor was here represented by the chairman Sports Development Commission. So definitely it is a very happy moment for us the Anambra Beach Soccer association.
Q. You brought Beach Soccer to Anambra state. What inspired the move?
A. Well I love the game, I was familiar with the game in the United States and for a while I have been discussing with my wife on how we can make an impact in the community where we are from and we decided to focus on Beach Soccer as a way to create opportunity for our young men and also as a way to engage the youth.
Q. This is a game that looks dry in the entire South East because what you just did is like a birth of a new dawn. How challenging has it been for you trying to start this up?
A. Well I think all my life I have always had a gift for innovation, creating new things. I have a passion to start something new and funding it. Creating Beach Soccer as the first in the South East for me it’s a thing of joy. As you can see we are not doing it on a small scale to the extent we now have the first Beach Soccer pitch in the South East and now we’re hosted this tournament here. This is all new, it is the first of it’s kind in the South East. But for me what keeps me going is looking at all these boys from Jigawa, Kaduna, Kebbi; it is their first time of coming to the South East. So now they can go back and be our ambassadors, it gives an impression of the safety we have here. They will talk to their families about Nnewi, about Anambra and that is what is all about. So for me that in itself is new and I love those kind of challenges.
Q. Now Anambra has a team that went to Kebbi and were able to secure third place and now qualified for Super Four. What do you think about the team
A. I feel good about the teams that we have, it is a team effort from our board members to our secretary who is on ground playing me when I am not around, Hon. Nsoedo, he has done a marvelous job. First kudos to our board members but I also think anything worth doing is worth doing well so if we’re going to be in it we are going to be the best that we can be. And the team understands the vision that we have and everyone is just working hard and our sponsors especially Innoson Motors, IVM is really being a rock for us. His advice and his guidance has been a bedrock for the success you just talked about. And I can assure you that the team will do the state proud in the Super four in Kaduna.
Q. What happens to this facility as the Nigeria Beach Soccer League Second Round Ends?
A. Oh yes, it might interest you to know that this is not the first competition we have had here. When we built our first pitch in Uru, we actually successfully held a corporate Beach Soccer championship where we got the staff of different companies in Nnewi to play a game. It was in the process of playing the game that we became aware of the National Beach Soccer Association and got them involved. So now that means that we have a world class pitch, once the tournament is over we have scheduled a corporate Beach tournament it is going to start. In line with our National President, Mahmoud Hadejia his vision is to encourage grassroot Beach Soccer in Anambra. So in line with that, our mission now is to engage the students to have a kind of high school tournament and to even take it to the business level where we get people in motorcycle parts to play against motor parts. We want to get everyone involved in Beach Soccer in line with the National President’s vision.
Q. While doing this thing you love so much, what has been your challenges?
A. There are always challenges. I think one is funding, funding has been a challenge so we’re doing our best to get the government involved, to get corporate sponsors involved to help us but I believe it is doable. The governor through his commissioner inaugurated this facility and promised to build it in the 21 local government areas. So that is something we are looking forward to as a way to deal with the financial challenges that we’re having.
Q. I know that you are a person with contacts. Do you have any plans of reaching out either to your friends, to your colleagues in other parts of Anambra to give flesh to this idea of Beach Soccer to make Anambra another Kebbi in Beach Soccer?
A. Yes definitely we are in discussion with different stakeholders both corporate and private. I have also been talking to some of my friends and I encourage them to start their own club. We have a club at it’s infancy in Onitsha now. So we’re encouraging that, speaking with enthusiasts to start their own club. If you look at Kebbi, Kebbi has 2 or 3 clubs so they can play with themselves that is where we are going. But I know we are going to exceed some of the things they have been able to do in four years. We want to be able to exceed it in one year. We are Anambra.
Q. During the inauguration, we noticed there was a women team and when you look at Beach Soccer in Africa we only have Uganda as the only country with a female Beach Soccer League. Do you want to replicate the same in Anambra?
A. Yes, it is in line with my passion for innovation. I think it is fair to say that we have a team now, they practice right now. So what we want to focus on is to encourage other states in the federation to start their own female team so that we can find a way to keep them busy. But we have an existing team and they are ready to go wherever a competition calls.
Q. Presently the Anambra state School Sports festival is ongoing. Beach Soccer is not yet part of the games being played. Do you have plans of putting a request for it’s inclusion in future?
A. Well that is the intention. We are reaching out to the commission to help us in that way so that we can be added in the curriculum. If you were here when we started on the opening day, the commissioner did mention the intention to build the beach soccer league to the 21 local government, I think that would help to integrate it into the sports festival.
Pix by Nasir Auwal
