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By Amaechi Agbo

The 8th edition of the most outstanding and glamourous youth football scouting competition in Nigeria, the Dreamland-Embassy of Hungary Cup earlier slated to hold in May this year has been postponed till November.

The postponement of the nine-day scouting programme became inevitable following the increase in Covid-19 cases in the country and across the world.

It could be recalled that the award-wining scouting tournament which has become a household name in Nigeria and outside the shores of the country was scheduled to hold in May, 2020 but has since been postponed many times no thanks to the ravaging pandemic.

The next edition of the tournament which has produced several players who are now in various leagues in Hungary and other European countries will hold from November, Saturday 20th to Sunday 28th, 2021.

Director of the competition, Mr Ndudi Edede told newsmen on Saturday that the management of Dreamland Football Academy (organizers of the tournament), the Embassy of Hungary in Abuja, as well as the European scouters agreed to shift the competition to a new date in order to give room for the second wave of the virus and also enable registered academies prepare adequately

Mr Edede who is also the Chief Executive Officer, CEO of Dreamland Football Academy, said that the tournament will see massive improvement in this year’s edition adding that the organisers are putting modalities in place to ensure that the academies and clubs that would participate had a good experience.

“This postponement has become imperative because of the increasing wave of the coronavirus. After a tripartite meeting – involving Dreamland, the Hungarian Embassy and the European scouters – we resolved that the best option now is to shift the competition to a new date to give the registered academies time to prepare as well as hope that the virus would have been managed very well and infection reduced. It make no sense that we host the competition and players discovered cannot travel as most of European member countries has restriction on issuance of short stay visas which we usually use for traveling of the players for trials.

“While we are glad that vaccines have been found to curtail the virus, we also wish to inform our stakeholder’s that several European countries are still in lockdown and this affected some of our Scouter’s who would have flown into the country for the competition.

“Despite the situation the country is facing right now, we are assuring our partners that this edition will witness much improvement from the last edition as the capacity of participating teams has been increased from twelve to sixteen.

“We therefore use this medium to notify all the registered teams for the youth football competition and the general public to kindly take note of the new date, November 20 to 28, 2021,’ he said.

The organisers noted with deep regret any inconvenience this development might cause the registered teams, partners and fans of the tournament who have been eagerly waiting for the commencement of the competition.

Galadima Football Academy of Abuja are the defending champions of the 7th Dreamland-Embassy of Hungary Cup Abuja held in 2019.

They emerged victorious on November 17, 2019, after defeating hard-fighting Hooke Sports Football Academy, also of Abuja, 5-3 on penalty shootouts that followed the goalless draw at regulation time.