Banjo Kamiludeen, the national coach of Nigeria Deaf Football Association (NDFA), has called for reward for the Deaf Eagles, runners-up at the just-concluded West Africa Deaf Football (WADFU) Tournament.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mali defeated Nigeria 1-0 in the final match of the tournament held in Sierra-Leone.
Nigeria, tournament’s three-times champions and three-times runners-up, had alongside seven countries participated in the competition organised by the West Africa Sports Deaf Union (WASDU) from Sept. 27 to Oct. 6.
“We struggled to go for this tournament and the boys successfully got to the final where they lost to Mali 0-1, after conceding some few minutes to the end of the match.
“In all, the team has done very well and deserves to be recognised by the government for making the country proud and finishing second out of the eight countries.
“As we know, the Deaf Eagles have been doing marvelously well. In all their outings at the tournament, Nigeria stood out in the continent and beyond,” Kamiludeen said on Saturday.
He said the deaf footballers were hopeful that their efforts in the tournament would attract meaningful reward from the Federal Ministry of Youths and Sports Development.
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The coach said the reward was necessary as it would go a long way to motivate the footballers to remain in the sport and target winning the main trophy at subsequent editions.