Kayode Badmus eyes Nigeria Premier Football League promotion for Ikorodu City

By Saheed Afolabi

Kayode Badmus says Ikorodu City are aiming for a qualification to the Nigeria Premier Football League this season.

Formerly Bolowotan FC, the Lagos based outfit were rechristened as Ikorodu City in 2022 and will compete in their second consecutive campaign in the Nigeria National League this term, beginning on March 21.

Ahead of the new NNL campaign, the executive director believes his side have learnt the ropes and can now challenge for a topflight spot this season with the quality of talents at their disposal.

“What we do at Ikorodu City FC is try to play good football, while also develop young talents, if you check most of our players, they are very young and we believe in them,” Badmus told NigeriaFootball.ng.

“This season, we are coming with the same style of football, we are not desperate to win matches as much as we want to gain promotion, and I can say the goal this season is to qualify to the NPFL. We have paid our dues last season and we have learnt the ropes, we have seen the politics and everything.

“This time around we are coming back with amazing young talents and we will be doing our best to get promoted to the NPFL. I have also seen some players that I would invite for trials, hopefully they will do well but our long term aim at Ikorodu City FC is to develop good and formidable team.

“One of our players Farouq have been called up to the Nigeria U20 team by coach Ladan Bosso, and this are what we do, help players grow while also winning games.”

On changes to its technical crew, the club’s supremo explained the major reason behind the management’s decision.

“Last season, our plan is developmental but, we also expected more from the technical crew which we didn’t really get,” he continued.

“We believe restructuring to also introduce younger minds into the coaching crew that would actually be in tandem with the philosophy and ideology of the management and that’s the basic reason why there was restructuring in the coaching crew and of course we believe in the new coaching crew to get the desired results this season.”

Ikorodu City will open their 2023 season campaign against FC Ebedei at the Mobolaji Johnson Stadium on Tuesday.