By Esther Egbe
Barr. Seyi Akinwunmi, the 1st Vice President of Nigeria Football Federation, who has put smiles on the face of indigent Nigerian children through his foundation – Seyi Akinwunmi Charity Foundation–has said that the foundation does not want to make mistakes with peoples’ money in the name of supporting the foundation.
Akinwunmi, who is also the Chairman of Lagos State Football Association, told National Daily that was the reason corporate bodies were not involved in the sponsorship of the foundation’s activities in the last five years since the inception of the foundation.
But he believes the time is ripe now for the foundation to enter into partnership /sponsorship agreement with corporate bodies having perfected every aspect of running of the foundation with various resources available to make it stand firm without making capital errors.
“We were not in a hurry to get big corporate bodies to support us because we felt that we had to learn the lessons. This charity foundation is very important and we had to ensure everything is in place because we never wanted to makes mistakes with peoples’ funds”, He explained .
“But now we are in a position to say that we are ready. We have our accountants and our accounts properly done. We have appointed proper staff for the foundation itself and now we are ready.
“Going forward, we are sure of getting big corporate bodies coming to support the foundation. Some of them are already talking to the foundation and hopefully we will get them to support us. Some smaller bodies have also supported the foundation by donating jerseys for the tournament”,NFF VP revealed .
The final of Seyi Akinwunmi Charity Foundation U-13 tournament comes up recently in Lagos and the kind heart behind the foundation said he is very optimistic that some of the players discovered during the tournament have the potentials to feature for the Golden Eaglets in the future.
“Of course I have no doubt that some players that featured in this tournament have the talents to play for the Golden Eaglets. I have no doubt”, he said.