David Olaniyan, the Chairman of Shooting Stars Sports Club of Ibadan is optimistic that the team’s coach Gbenga Ogunbote will at the end of the season lead them to continental competition.
Akoro as his is fondly called sad in an exclusive interview in Abuja, he said, “Hopefully at the end of the season, Ogunbote will give 3SC continental ticket, I have that assurance. We are going to come out in flying colours.
He however admitted that in order to achieve the set target 3SC need to fortify the squad ahead of the new season.
“Our concern is for him rebuild the club, we don’t have a team, we managed to escaped the relegation last season and next season the goal is to get one of the Continental ticket.
He highlighted bad administration as one of the factors affecting the Oluwole Warriors.
“This is affecting football in Nigeria, bad administration, lack of concentration, putting the odds before the cards are part of what is affecting all the clubs in Nigeria and I will like to narrow it down to Shooting Stars.
“If a goverment is in place for about 4-8years and he didnt have interest in football it will tell in the club but when you see a goverment that comes in and within two years and have rebuilt a Stadium for the domestic clubs, you know they are committed to the development of grassroot football.
He said the pre-season tournament where the former Nigeria champions failed to win a match in four games should be used to rebuild for the new season.
“Coming to the preseason, it is not to win it but to use it as an avenue to select a new crop of quality players that we will use for the new season.
In the first two matches that we played the new coach used mostly the retained players to know their strength before using the new players, and that can be observed in the match we played against continental team that is Plateau United that ended 0-0. That is when he introduced the new players that we will register but for the first two games as a new coach, he didn’t train with the team, what we had were the retained players. He needs to see their strength and he has seen that not all have what it takes to remain in the team and he will do the necessary thing.
“Definitely, the coach knows what he is doing in fact after this week, we will be able to have our team to be trained at the end of this week he will now give us a two-week plan/program before we start our friendly matches to freshen up the team at least we have to give him at least 2 weeks to work on the team because he hasn’t work on the team.
“At the end of two weeks we will start with some friendlies with amauteur teams to the bigger teams to know we are fully prepared for the Season.
“Performance is the requirement and we know he is going to give us the performance. I have been worrying, chatting with him, since i came in from the beginning, from the half of the season. we have been talking. He has been there in two occasions to rescue us, we know his worth, when he gives u a team, he is given you a perfect team and he knows what he wants also he has integrity.” Akoro concluded.
