A’Ibom Gov Congratulates Akwa United FC Over 2020/21 NPFL Win

…As reigning champions trash MFM FC 5-2 to win trophy

…Says his vision is for Akwa United to win CAF

Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mr Udom Emmanuel has congratulated Akwa United Football Club for their historic and emphatic 5-2 victory over Mountain of Fire Ministries (MFM) FC to be crowned Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL) champions for the first time in 25 years.

The Governor who watched Akwa United live at Godswill Akpabio International Stadium (Nest of Champions) on Sunday, amidst jubilating spectators, singing and hailing their teams, acknowledged God’s mercies upon the team to emerge league leaders after a scintillating performance at home.

Speaking to Government House Correspondents after the victory, the Governor expressed his appreciation to God for granting the team victory, commending Akwa United players for making the state proud also the management for their support to the team, congratulating the team spirit exhibited by players and Akwa Ibom people for believing and supporting them to victory.

In his words, ’I want to thank all Akwa Ibomites both in home and at the diaspora, for their support and prayers today Akwa Ibomites wherever you are I am proud of you and I am also proud to an Akwa Ibomite. I know you have said that never in history has a team from this entire region risen to win two FA cups, and a league trophy by one governor, how you can explain that? You know one thing sums it all only God!’’.

He stated that his vision for the team is to conquer Africa at the Continental League games, and promised to give the team the necessary support to feature at the Confederation of African Football (CAF) Champions League, maintaining that the team has not only brought laurels to the state, but has been a good investment yielding returns.

‘’I told them that first, you must make an investment, secondly, you must make a good investment, thirdly, you must ensure good returns. People can make an investment but it’s not a good investment, some can make a good investment but it can’t yield good return, so if you are a good investor, your investment must be a good investment and must also yield return. I think the entire State has made a good investment and the investment is yielding good return”.

Continuing, he said, “Today they have conquered Nigeria, we are looking forward to conquered Africa and I will give them the maximum support to make sure they conquered Africa once we conquer Africa, we’ll go to World Club tournament then we will conquer the World that’s our vision”.

The governor who described football as a sub-sector of economic development, thanked Nigeria Professional Football League NPFL and Nigeria Football Federation NFF for managing sports sector in the country, re-echoed his commitment towards sport development in the state, noting that youths will be empowered through sports which has been one of the target of his completion agenda, he indicated.

“…it doesn’t only begin and end in football, if you look at when we came in our first term when we started with our 5- point agenda, you could see under the youth development sub theme we expressed a lot desire to more. This is what actually motivated us to set up sports centers in the 10 Federal Constituencies to train our people not only in football, you can see the first junior Commonwealth gold medalist, Aniekeme is from Akwa Ibom he came out of our summer sports championship.

“Today I will be surprised if the Super Eagles do not take this team to represent Nigeria, it means they don’t want to win a trophy, the whole team represent Nigeria in any tournament, they would have been at Olympics I am sure they would have gotten a gold today”, he submitted.