No fewer than 17 media houses have registered for the Sport Writers Association of Nigeria Lagos Cup competition scheduled for July 24 to 31 at the National Stadium.
Fred Edoreh, the Chairman of Lagos SWAN, told the News Agency of Nigeria on Thursday that the Cup was designed to bring journalists together to enable them interact among each other aside from normal work.
Edoreh said: “SWAN Cup is organised as a platform to bring journalists together in order to interact, know themselves and to promote active participation in sport for healthy living and recreation.
“We also use it as an avenue to release stress.
“The competition usually comes up once in a year.
“However, it is a period when sport journalists leave their various desk to relax and also to have fun and share experience of what sport is all about and promote the association.”
Edoreh said that a 5-aside competition would be organised for sports desks of various media houses, adding that the body would also organise the annual SWAN seminar during the week.
He said: “This year we have two topics: ‘Bonding Sports in Nigeria’, which will be delivered by the Director General of National Sports Commission (NSC), Al-Hassan Yakmut.
“And we also have: ‘Globalising Nigerian Sport, a challenge for the Nigeria Sport Media,’ which will be handled by the President of the Nigeria Football Federation, Amaju Pinnick.”
Edoreh said the opening ceremony for the SWAN Cup would be on July 24.
He said the opening ceremony would feature a match between Sports Editors and Veterans, squaring up against ex-internationals.
The Chairman of the Organising Committee, Debo Oshundun, said the competition was going to be an interesting experience with a lot of prizes to be won.
“The winner of the competition will go home with N100,000, second runner-up will get N70,000, the third runner-up will receive N50,000 and the fourth runner-up will go home with N30,000,” Oshundun said.
He said that there would also be individual tag prize of N10,000 each for the most valuable player, the highest goal scorer, best goalkeeper and the best coach of the competition.
Oshundun also said that there would be a medical check up for all members before the competition.
The draw for the competition is as follows:
GROUP A
City FM, Radio Nigeria, Voice of Nigeria, and Super Sports.
GROUP B
TVC, Silverbird TV, Sport Vision, Inspiration FM and Cool FM.
GROUP C
NTA, Nation/Sporting Life, Channels TV, and Sky Sport.
GROUP D
Sports Day, News Agency of Nigeria, Complete Sport and Top Radio.
NAN.