Airtel finally awards multi-billion Naira advertising business

Airtel Unveils 2015 “Live the dream”

Airtel Nigeria, a prominent mobile telecoms brand operating in the country has launched the 2015 edition of their grassroots football tournament, Airtel Rising Stars (ARS 15). The competition’s theme tagged: “Live the Dream, It’s Now”, is an annual youth tourney occurring simultaneously in 18 countries across Africa which aims to provide the platform for discovering the next generation of talented football stars.

Unveiling Season 5 of the competition on Wednesday at a press conference held at Southern Sun Hotel in Ikoyi, Lagos, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Airtel Nigeria, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya, said the Airtel brand has made as a core philosophy to support the various passions of Africans. He further added that with football being one of them, the company is ready to continuously support the passion of the people.

“This is the 5^th year in a row that we are going to have this tournament. It started in 2011 and there is a statement that we made when we came to Africa that we are going to support the passion of Africa. We are very passionate about so many things, football is one of them, music is another, education is another passion, so at Airtel, we know what you want, we like what you like. This is what the brand stands for, it is your brand”, he said.

The CEO further spoke on the scope and relevance of the competition saying, “For those who may not be aware, Airtel Rising Star is actually the largest grassroot tournament in Africa. In Nigeria for instance, over the past four seasons, over 70,000 footballers participated. It is not only about participation, it’s about winning, we have transformed some of them into football stars.”

Also speaking at the event, Chief Commercial Officer, Airtel Nigeria, Maurice Newa, said the competition’s objective is to develop the skills of young footballers, building a talent base from which future players of the national team would be drawn out from.

In his words, “With Airtel Rising Stars, it’s all about grassroots football development and in this, our objective is to grow and sharpen the skills of our youths in this country in the arena of football. In this case, what we are looking at is to actually ensure that we do have a pool of talents that will continuously feed into the football system right from the U-17 up to the national team.”

The event witnessed the attendance of a galaxy of stars including Airtel ambassadors such as Yaya Toure- the reigning African Footballer of the Year, Tu Face Idibia, Ik Osakioduwa, and Akpororo, graduates of previous ARS editions such as Al Hassan Ibrahim Abduallahi, a member of the Nigeria U-20 team and Vivian Ikechukwu of the women U-17 team. Also present were the technical advisors of ARS 2015, Mr. Mutiu Adepoju and Jonathan Apkoborire.

Speaking at the press conference, Yaya Toure said, “This campaign is unbelievable and this project for me is something I feel about because when I was a kid, I was the same like those kids that are there now and for me, it is a massive opportunity.”