Author: The Nation

Nottingham Forest could accept an offer for Emmanuel Dennis this summer, according to reports.

The striker has failed to hold down a place in the Reds’ team, with Steve Cooper not seemingly convinced with the player.

Dennis signed for the Reds from Watford for a fee of around £20 million. His arrival was somewhat surprising and it’s not entirely evident that Cooper was the man who picked him for the team.

The 25-year-old has found himself on the bench more often than not this season. He has started just six games, scoring twice and registering three assists for his teammates.

Now, according to Football Insider, the Reds would be willing to offload the player. It’s not clear from the report what Forest value him at, but they’d likely want their money back for Dennis.

Dennis signed for Forest after an impressive season in the Premier League during 2021/22. He scored 10 goals for the Hornets but was unable to prevent them from staying in the Premier League.

Dennis will be keen to maintain his place in the Nigeria team. As a result, he would likely jump at the chance to head out somewhere and play more frequently in a team.

Read Also: Dennis not available for Chelsea showdown

• After escaping relegation with Foxes

Super Falcons and Leicester City defender Ashleigh Plumptre believes hard work and determination was the key to LCFC Women’s Barclays Women’s Super League survival.

Leicester’s Women rounded off their 2022/23 campaign with a 1-0 victory against Brighton & Hove Albion last Saturday.

The narrow win at Broadfield Stadium confirmed league safety, and City’s highest-ever WSL finish, leapfrogging the Seagulls into 10th position on the final day.

Following the full-time whistle, defender Plumptre spoke to LCFC TV, and outlined why the team deserve to celebrate an impressive achievement, as the Club prepare for their third consecutive season in the WSL.

“It’s come down to focusing on ourselves,” Plumptre opened with. “I know it sounds really cliché, but if we were to have got lost looking at points in the table and looking at everybody else, I think it could have sent us the other way.

“It required a lot of self-reflection on an individual basis and thinking about what we can do individually to ultimately have an impact on the collective and I think it’s shown in the results that we’ve managed to get in the second half of the season.”

Read Also: Super Falcons’ Plumptre savours 4-0 thumbing of Liverpool

The Leicestershire-born defender acknowledged that her this was her second time of escaping relegation with the Foxes, but is determined that the top flight of English football is where City belong.

The Club now head into a well-deserved summer, however international duty beckons, as Plumptre prepares for this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup.

She is looking forward to the challenge, albeit wanting some time to recover.

“I’m looking forward to a little bit of a break,” the Nigerian international continued. “I’ve got a few niggles here and there, so I just want time to rest, get on top of that and then try and be in the best shape possible to be able to represent Nigeria.”

The President of the Nigeria Wheelchair Softball Association Sunday Odior has made a passionate appeal to Nigerians and corporate organisations to lend support to Para events.

He made this call during the international wheelchair softball friendly game between Nigeria and Ghana held at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos over the weekend.

According to him, while Nigeria was the first country to get introduced to the sport, lack of support had affected the progress of the game in the country.

He lamented that this is unlike Ghana and other African countries that had government support and individual sponsors, adding over 20m people living with disability in Nigeria, para-sports had received little or no attention from government, corporate and individual sponsors.

He also expressed dismay that the absence of adequate equipment was a major hindrance to the Nigerian team as a wheelchair cost between $4,000 to $15,000.

Read Also: Nigeria, Ghana clash in wheelchair softball game

He revealed that the wheelchairs used by the Ghanaian team were the standard required, while Nigeria’s fell short of standard which affected their throws and batting in the friendly match.

Meanwhile, Ghana defeated Nigeria in the wheelchair softball friendly match by four runs to three runs.

The five innings friendly match which the Nigerian team started off strongly, saw the Ghanaian team coming from three runs down to emerge victorious on the home turf of the Nigerian team.

At the end of the match, Samuel Babin and Bah Frimpong of Ghana won the best batter and Most Valuable Players (MVP) respectively, while Lateef Jimoh and Razaq Bankole of Nigeria won the best pitcher and best fielder respectively.

President of FC Ebedei Barrister Churchill Oliseh, said sports can arguably be employed, deployed, to drive and sustained systematic change in culture, civilization and even religious faith.

Oliseh, a lawyer cum football administrator was the speaker at this year’s Breeding Leaders for Empowerment and National Transformation (BLENT), hosted by Dr. Mike Okonkwo, The Presiding Bishop of the Redeemed Evangelical Mission (TREM), in Gbagada, Lagos,

The President of Nigeria National League (NNL) club, in a 5-page lecture titled:’ The impact of Sport on societal transformation: The Nigerian Football Story’, talked about how sports can help social transformation via the economy it drives, national identity, and unity it gives.

“Empirically football was introduced into Nigeria with the assistance and activities of the early missionaries. With time it became a vehicle for city congregation and representation. So we had teams like Port Harcourt XI, Ibadan XI, Enugu XI. It grew and by the 40s and 50s, we had attained a national team for Nigeria,” he said as he detailed Nigerian football trajectory.

Read Also: UNFORGETTABLE: Oliseh, Izilein, others recall magic moments with Pele

“The golden era saw Nigeria qualify for the FIFA World Cup in 1994 with a 2nd Round finish, win the 1994 African Cup of Nations in Tunisia, Olympic gold medal in Atlanta in 1996, and qualify for its second Mundial in France.

“In the millennium, the Nigerian flag was visibly present at the Japan/Korea World Cup in 2002. In club football, Enyimba became the first Nigerian team to win a back-to-back CAF Champions League after winning it in 2003.

“Nigeria became a global brand, feared and loved, even the military regimes of the day leveraged our football success. We spoke in one voice and proudly sang the national anthem and saluted the Nigerian flag.

“Unfortunately, the ease and fortuitous nature of our attaining the golden era became our undoing, due to the absence of a policy/program to replace the players of that era,” he added amid applause by the audience.

He added: “Deliberate global policy to deny Nigeria and Africa access to the foreign Resources and technology Africa relied on in conquering and challenging the World.

Hijack of Nigerian football by incompetence, ineptitude, maladministration, and outright banditry,” he said.

World number three Novak Djokovic inched closer to a record-breaking 23rd Grand Slam title by crushing Peruvian Juan Pablo Varillas 6-3 6-2 6-2 on Sunday to reach the French Open quarter-finals.

The Serbian, who is currently tied with Spain’s Rafa Nadal at 22 majors, was untroubled by his 94th-ranked opponent, the first Peruvian in 29 years to reach a Grand Slam fourth round, on a windy day on Philippe Chatrier court.

He attacked Varillas at every opportunity to avoid being drawn into lengthy baseline battles that had seen the 27-year-old win all his three previous rounds in five-set marathons.

Varillas lost the vast majority of the shorter rallies and could not find a way back into the match as Djokovic set up a quarter-final against 11th seed Karen Khachanov.

Read Also: Musetti dumps Djokovic in Monte Carlo last 16

A two-time champion in Paris, Djokovic has now reached the quarter-finals at the French Open for a record 17th time.

This would be one more than 14-time champion Rafa Nadal who is absent this year due to injury.

He is on course to win his 23rd Gramd Slam title, and faces just three matches to make history in France.

It remains to be seen as to who Djokovic will face in the next round, with the 36-year-old hoping to lift the title this year.

Leicester City midfielder Wilfred Ndidi has apologised for the club’s relegation to the Championship.

The 26-year-old posted a message to supporters on Instagram after City dropped down to the second tier on the final day of the season. He has joined teammates Ricardo Pereira, James Maddison and Youri Tielemans in addressing City fans publicly.

Ndidi offered his “sincerest apologies” for the team failing to beat the drop, admitting he was “gutted” that City were unable to retain their status as a Premier League club. He says the team “deeply regret” letting down the Blue Army.

Read Also: EPL: Iheanacho, Ndidi’s Leicester relegated

“I would like to offer my sincerest apologies for the team’s relegation,” Ndidi wrote. “Gutted that we couldn’t make it in the end.

“We understand how much you invested in supporting us throughout the season, and we deeply regret letting you down. Please know that your unwavering support is invaluable to us, and we are grateful for your loyalty. Thank you for your understanding and continued support.”

Ndidi is expected to move on this summer as City prepare for a significant squad rebuild under a new manager in the Championship but with a sharp drop in funding. The midfielder has previously been linked with Manchester United.

• First Bank, IGP Queens clash in Atlantic Conference

Two high-flying teams in the ongoing preliminaries for the National Women League being organized by the Nigeria Basketball Federation– First Bank of Lagos and IGP Queens also of Lagos – will clash today at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium Benin.

The two teams have been dominating their opponents so far in the ongoing competition which will qualify eight of the 16 teams playing in Benin ticket to compete in the National Women Basketball elite league sponsored by Zenith Bank Plc.

Only yesterday, First Bank defeated another top team, Dolphins 45-30 just as IGP Queens defeated First Deep Water 52-34. On the opening match day, First Bank defeated First Deep Water 47-19 and it was IGP who whipped Dolphin, 45-24 on match Day 2.

Read Also: Olukoya women’s b’ball tourney goes international

The First Bank team also on Saturday night defeated Ekiti Angels 59-19 and so they are closer to emerge first team to book a ticket for the Zenith Bank National Women Basketball League finals.

With three wins recorded so far respectively, First Bank and the IGP Queens are aiming for the fourth.

Anthony Joshua launched an expletive-fuelled rant to deny reports that he is fighting Dillian Whyte in August.

Joshua, 34, has been linked to a rematch against domestic rival Whyte before a potential fight against Deontay Wilder in December, but the former two-time heavyweight champion has insisted he knows nothing about the former. ‘AJ’ denied the reports by quoting an iconic lyric from Stormzy’s ‘WickedSkengMan Part 4’ song.

The posts weren’t up for long as Joshua deleted both of them, but they caught the attention of Whyte who then issued a response to his rival.

Joshua was beaten by Whyte when the pair fought over a decade ago as amateurs, but he avenged the loss in their professional rematch in 2015.

Hearn added of the potential rematch between the pair: “The Dillian Whyte fight is a very dangerous fight for AJ, it’s very ballsy fight to go into when you’ve got that payday against Deontay Wilder in December, but that’s his preferred fight now. That fight’s got to get done, but that is his preferred opponent for August.”