‘Binatone Skate Soccer Fiesta will highlight plight of polio victims’

The maiden International Skate Soccer Fiesta, which will feature physically challenged athletes from Nigeria and Ghana, is aimed at taking polio victims off the streets, the organisers have said.

The competition will hold at the Independence Square in Accra, Ghana on March 19.The competition, which is organized by the International Federation for Skate Soccer (IFSS), is being sponsored by Binatone, a household electronic appliances manufacturer.

An inaugural event of the IFSS competition had taken place at La Pleasure Beach in Accra on January 15 with a team from Accra against another from the Ashanti region in Ghana.

Aside evoking memories of the age-old soccer rivalry between Nigeria and Ghana, the sponsors said the sport and the non-profit IFSS were created to bring together the physically challenged with a core focus on Polio sufferers, who have no ability to walk and who usually beg for alms. The benefit that IFSS hopes to bring to these individuals is food, shelter and help in finding a steady job.

Binatone Group Managing Director, Mr. Sunil Lalvani, said, “the cause is more than worthy, and the approach taken by IFSS make it a sustainable cause over the long term also. The organization not only works to give the players (and other non-playing Polio sufferers) a proper livelihood, but by taking them off the streets, they regain their dignity.”

After the upcoming Ghana versus Nigeria game, he disclosed that the organization will plan an African Cup of Nations style tournament to involve the whole continent, and the greater goal remain to take this riveting sport to the Paralympic Games.