)
The 2024 City Sports Awards ceremony was a night of glitz, glamour and reward for year-round hard work for the stars of tomorrow.
Saturday, December 7 was a memorable day for sports development in Nigeria as the 2024 instalment of the annual City Sports Awards ceremony were held in recognition of outstanding personalties in sports and leadership categories.
The 2024 Sports and Leadership award ceremony also doubled as the fifth-anniversary celebration of City Sports Africa in what was a glamourous night filled with lots of food, merriment and some surprisingly well-choreographed dancing by the CEO Shola Opaleye of all people.
Shola Opaleye spoke with Pulse Sports about the success of the night, particularly his spectacular dance routine which was so clinically executed along with some of the students.
"A lot of work went into that, first I want to thank the coach, Jerry, that guy is a fantastic dancer and also a very good coach. We put in a lot of work, we would come to the office every other day for us to train with all the other staff and it was rewarding it was really good, and we’re happy we did it. None of us wanted to do it, I definitely didn’t want to do it but we just did it and that's even something we teach our students, sometimes you’re not courageous enough to do certain things but just do it," Opaleye said lighthertedly.
)
2024 Sports and Leadership Award Winners
Lots of awards were handed out in different categories to reward certain key figures for their outstanding performers over the last year. Kamran Nouri won the premiere prize, the Sports Leader of the Year Award.
)
FOOTBALL UNDER-7: OREOLUWA OLANREWAJU
FOOTBALL UNDER-9: LORE BAKRE
FOOTBALL UNDER-11: HERVE ERIKUME
FOOTBALL UNDER-13: KANYE AKARAIWE
FOOTBALL UNDER-15: TOBI AYODELE
BASKETBALL UNDER-9: BRIAN EBORU
BASKETBALL UNDER-15: AKACHI UGBOAJA
FOOTBALL ACADEMY UNDER-12: KAMIL OREAGBA
FOOTBALL ACADEMY UNDER-15: KIAN NOURI
FOOTBALL ACADEMY UNDER-18: ISIAKA ALIFU
BASKETBALL ACADEMY: ADAM ALWAN
CITY SPORTS FC: BANKOLE ABEDEEN
ATHLETICS: ERIASE TERIBA
SWIMMING INTRODUCTION: DANY HIJAZI
SWIMMING FOUNDATION: ANJOLAOLUWA OTEMUYIWA
GOAL OF THE SEASON: MABO
MULTI SPORT AWARD: ARIREOLUWA IYIOLA
SPORTS MUM: MRS AKINNIYI
SPORTS DAD: MR COLLINS EBORU
OVERALL MVP: KAMRAN NOURI
City Sports outlines plans for the next decade
City Sports CEO Shola Opaleye revelled in the success of the awards night, "In terms of what goes into it, it’s a lot of work from the beginning of the year, we don’t start the year thinking we just want to do an award night."
)
"There is no award night without activities, if you don’t have programs, you don’t just call people and start giving them awardsThey are candidates of the activities we have put together, rigorous activities in many cases and this is just for them attend a City Sports event without playing football or basketball, just to relax, eat and then win an award,Year in year out even though the environment sometimes may get tougher, these things still keep happening and we’re so grateful to God."
"It was always a dream, in your mind you can envision anything, but thank God that I had it in my mind because without that dream we won’t be here, but it felt like a dream that would take a longer time to accomplish but in five years and this is happening, it’s a bit surprising."
"It tells us that there is a need in this market, these children have needs, this kind of thing is a development program for them as well, they win an award they’re happy that they’ve done some things but more importantly about the awards they will all win tonight is that this a step up, every award is an invitation to the next level."
)
17:45 - 25.09.2024
City Sports Africa celebrates 5 years of youth development, reveals big plans for the next decade
City Sports Africa announces big plans to reach 10 million youth through sports over the next 10 years
"It’s been a great year, we launched a football club, we had Nefeye join Arsenal, we had Myro who couldn’t be here today because she’s playing WAFU Cup with the national team. One of the biggest achievements for us is that we changed our name to City Sports Africa because that represents our new vision to reach out to every African child all around the world and every child in Africa."
"We’ve done 250000 in the last five years at the rate of 50000 per year, now from 2025 we want to do 1 million a year and for the next 10 years it will be 10 million, that’s a far cry from where we started from but we think we can do it and we will push everything by God’s grace."
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)