10-Year-Old Ezebube Vows To Repay Parents For Giving Him Life In Football

ADEBOBOLA ALAWODE

At barely age ten, Ezebube Kosisochukwu has said he would do everything humanly possible to make his parents proud, as they have deemed it fit to enroll him at a sports academy.

Fondly called ‘Kosi’ by his teammates at the Bright Stars Sports Academy, Satellite Town, Lagos State, the frail looking striker believes his parents made the right choice by enrolling him in the sports academy. He noted that he would do all within his power to repay his parents for affording him the opportunity of honing his football playing skills under the tutelage of some the best football coaches around Lagos State and its environs.

Kosi, a primary four pupil of Arch-Angel Nursery and Primary School, Satellite, Lagos State, expressed strong confidence in his ability to reach the zenith of sports, while combining it with education. On the source of his optimism, he said with the scientific and technological training that he and other football players are exposed to, he is sure of becoming a world-beater someday

According to the ten-year-old football player: “I must confess, my teammates and I are enjoying the way our coaches are training us. I have also visited some academies in Lagos State but I must confess we are exposed to topnotch training. With the way things are going, I see myself combining football and education because I would like to reward my parents for believing in me.’’

The young and aspiring grassroots football player may be naïve when it comes to football administration, but he has some words of advice for football administrators in Nigeria.

He urged the administrators to embark on intensive scouting so as to unearth budding football players that can help the country get back to winning ways especially at the age-grade level.

In his words ‘‘The Nigeria Football Federation, NFF must do the needful especially when it comes to age-grade football, the issue of age falsification must stop and how can this be achieved they must go back to the academicals, I don’t think most of those representing the country at the Under-17 level are truly below that age, the win at all cost syndrome must stop if football must develop in the country.’’

He tasked the Ministry of Youths Sports and Social Development to try and regulate sports academies in the country as most of them are not fit to be called academies.

The lanky football player concluded by charging youths all over the country to take their studies serious, shun the use of illicit drugs as those vices can truncate their promising future, ‘‘I want youths in the country to be of good conduct, listen to your parents, teachers and guardians because they have passed the roads we are going to pass that means they are more experienced than us.’’