AFAS sporting activities are here

By Olorunfemi Praise

The reality of resumption is apparent to everyone at this point. From the Sports’ desk of the AFAS Press, we warmly welcome everyone back to school and we wish everyone a productive time this semester. We also want to believe that from the 8-month strike-break (or pieces, because this is a shatter), we all are going to be renewed for maximum productivity.

Now, as we all know, sporting activities, alongside academics have been on hold since the strike. And resumption of school equals resumption of sporting activities in the faculty also. It is in this vein, that the Super 4 cup has been anticipated to kick-off soon. It is worthy of note that spectators should expect the full participation of females again in the anticipated Super 4 cup. The format of the competition, just as tradition and the name suggests, will be an inter-departmental competition between 4 departments for both the female category and the male category. For the female category, we have departments of European Studies, Archaeology, Religious Studies, and Communication and Language Arts. On the other hand, for the male category, we have the departments of Archaeology, Arabic and Islamic Studies, Classics, and Communication and Language Arts. Although the date has not been concluded yet, we anticipate it commencing around 4th or 5th week.

In addition, it is also interesting to know that the Sports director is about to unveil a new kind of football competition he has tagged inter-level competition. This does not mean there will be a competition between one level and the other. Instead, the format is that a level across all the 12 departments in the faculty will come together to create a team. We are looking at having something like: freshers versus finalist, 200l v 300l students. This mode of competition is an initiative of the Sports director. He explains that his aim with this is to reduce the rivalry between departments when it comes to football. This has not been approved by the FLC, nevertheless, the sports director is very optimistic about the approval of this competition, as he believes there are enough funds on ground to cater for the whole competition. We also look forward to the 4th and 5th week for the commencement of the inter-level competition.

Furthermore, the Sports director also hinted on intentions to develop other sports. He listed table-tennis, chess, monopoly, and scrabble as sports he is considering. This indicates that the faculty will be having attention drawn to other sporting activities. All the sports aforementioned are however indoor games.

There are other outdoor games with readily available facilities aside football, which have suffered from lack of attention. For example, there are facilities for lawn-tennis, volley ball, and even basketball, within the school campus. These are sporting activities the sports director should look into reviving in the faculty.

However, the Sports director’s silence on these other sports could be as a result of these facilities not being within immediate reach or maintenance of the faculty. Regardless, because we have high hopes, we expect to see more sporting development from the sports director, as he has started with the idea of an inter-level competition.