The co-founder and CEO of Paystack, Shola Akinlade has launched a football club tagged Sporting Lagos. This was announced in a blogpost.
Akinlade who founded Paystack alongside Ezra Olubi in 2015 said he established the club in order to ‘deepen my involvement in our community, given me so much. “
For Akinlade, the most reliable way to build a community is via Football which “has always been a space that makes me proud to be part of this country and continent. That’s likely because football is more than entertainment; it’s identity, it’s opportunity. Digging deeper into the sport has been a revelation. There’s an entire ecosystem of time, activity, and talent that goes into those electrifying 90 minutes.”
The CEO of Paystack hopes that the successes of the Club will unite Nigerians because football is a great equalizer that transcend tribe, gender, age, and religion.
The new club will be playing in the Nigerian National League (NNL), the second division of Nigerian club football with ambitions to break into the 1st division Nigerian Professional Football League (NPFL). The club’s first game will be on 12 February, 2022 at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Lagos, Nigeria.
The operating team of Sporting Lagos includes Godwin Enakhena, Club Chairman; Uzo Okonkwo, General Manager; and Yemisi Cole, Club Secretary.
Meanwhile, the Governing Board that will oversee the strategic direction of the team and community are Ekene Agu, who works at Paystack and is a former startup consultant; Colin Udoh, a journalist at ESPN and the former media officer of the Super Eagles; and Fola Olatuniji-David who worked at Google and is now an investor at Kickoff Africa.
On his role, Akinlade said that he would provide “most of the financial investment necessary to get this off the ground and will entrust the full-time team to realize our bold ambitions.” Regardless, Akinlade will remain fully focused on Paystack and continue building payments infrastructure for Africa.
