Kano — Former chairman of the Nigeria Football Association (NFA), Alhaji Ibrahim Galadima has said that Kano is one of the best centres for the orthcoming FIFA World Youth Championship billed to hold next year.

Sequel to the federal govern-ment's u-turn decision to host the youth championship, the state Local Organising Commit-tee (LOC) led by its chairman, Alhaji Ahmad Muhammad Mu'azu Kawu paid him a cour-tesy call over the weekend in Kano.

Receiving the delegation, Galadima said Kano has all it takes to be one of the centres for the youth tourney, saying Kano received commendation from the football governing body, FIFA for its impressive organisation during Nigeria'99 and Ghana/Nigeria African Cup of Nations.

Alhaji Galadima who served as the chairman of the Kano sub-seat during Nigeria'99 further explained that after some years of hosting the champion-ship, many of the facilities used are still in good shape.

According to him, in terms of pitches, hotels, airport, specta-torship, security and conducive atmosphere, which FIFA may likely use as criteria to assess the centres, Kano sub-seat walks tall above other centres.

The former NFA scribe however assured that with the composition of the interim LOC members, the state will maintain its impressive record.

The chairman then called on the state LOC to improve upon, especially the venue of the match, Sani Abacha Stadium and the training pitches as their major focus in order to convince FIFA for their readiness to host the fiesta.

While charging them to intensify efforts to ensure the successful hosting of the tour-nament, Alhaji Galadima who is currently the chairman of Kano Pillars Continental Committee, however, pledged to assist the state LOC with a view to actua-lizing the set objectives.

In his earlier remark, Alhaji Kawu, who is also the Special Adviser to Kano state Governor on Sports Development said his committee had already forwar-ded recommendation for rehab works at Sani Abacha Stadium and training pitches to the government in preparation the FIFA officials' visit January next year.

He then assured that his committee will do everything possible to ensure the state is selected as one of the centres.

He called on the people of the state give support to LOC and the state government toward achieving the desired goals. Ka-wu therefore thanked the state governor, Malam Ibrahim She-karau, for his unwavering sup-port to sports development, ur-ging wealthy individuals and corporate organisations to bor-row a leaf from him so as to sup-plement government's efforts.