SOFT drink manufacturer, Coca-Cola, has explained its decision to stay away from football sponsorship in the country, saying that it felt it would be better for the country if it concentrated on developing the game.The company in 2008 stopped sponsoring the nation's Federation Cup, which it bankrolled for 10 years, and terminated its partnership with the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) in 2010 to concentrate on the Copa Coca-Cola championships, a grassroots development programme.Speaking during the final of the northern zone of Copa Coca-Cola football championship in Abuja, the project manager, Femi Adelusi, said the company believed that as a business organisation, it would contribute more to development of football in the country through grassroots sponsorship rather than putting money in either the league or the Federation Cup.'After so many years of Challenge Cup sponsorship, as a business organisation, we asked ourselves the question: What is that one or two things that as a business outfit we can add to develop football in the country' For over 10 years, Coca-Cola was involved in the sponsorship of the FA Cup, and also we have been involved in other forms of football development,' he said.'As a sound business organisation, you will always review your strategy to refresh and see what is it that will give you a long term business benefit, so when we did it some years back, we realized that for us to have that long term growth, we need to look into the development of grassroots football.'You will agree with me that in recent years, our football has not been at the level it ought to be, not because there are no talents, but because we have not filled up the pipeline as quickly as it should be. So in Coca-Cola, we saw the opportunity in going to the grassroots to uncover those talents so as to build from the bottom up, rather than top to bottom.'If after re-evaluating our strategy we still see the need to return to full football sponsorship, definitely we will go back, but at the moment this is what we feel will provide the best long-term benefit for Nigeria.
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