The CEO of Coal City Football of Enugu, Chukwuemerie Agu has revealed that his reason for floating the club is to take youths away from the streets. He said this in an interview with the media.
“Actually I played soccer a little growing up and when I served the State, I was the General Manager, Enugu State Housing Development Cooperation. I actually checked how I will give back to the society based on the opportunity of serving the State and I chose football. The inspiration basically is to take away youths from the streets through football and also youth empowerment.”
He said that most talented people do not have a platform to go higher in their career, hence he chose a platform to help young boys to be noticed. He said many players have been promoted to bigger clubs through the club and that gives him pleasure.
Talking about challenges, he said it is basically finance. Nevertheless, he finds a way to keep the club going.
“Basically finance. But what I do is to prepare or reset the mindset of these players that what we are doing is to use this platform to move forward. Some of them don’t earn any salaries. Some of them get stipends. We have sponsors as well who believe in what we are doing and who have seen results from what we have done in the past.”
He opined that football administrators in the country can learn from their foreign counterparts in administration, officiating and other administrative logistics. He acknowledged the efforts of the NNL in running the league and also urged them to commercialize the league