Exclusives

Former world player of the year Luis Figo has joined UEFA as a football advisor. The 44-year-old former Portugal star will work with UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin and UEFA’s Football Divison “across a variety of matters including technical aspects of the game, laws of the game and the overall attractiveness of the sport”.

The Emergency Committee of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), which is about the most powerful panel in African football, will hold a meeting in Lagos on Saturday, 14th October 2017. CAF top officials confirmed to that the meeting, which will hold in Ikoyi, would deliberate on recent happenings in the African game, as well as discuss on CAF competitions coming up next year, including the African Nations Championship, which hosting right has been withdrawn from Kenya.

Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Neymar headline an impressive 30-man shortlist unveiled on Monday for the 2017 Ballon d’Or world footballer of the year award. Portugal superstar Ronaldo is attempting to match Lionel Messi’s record by winning the prize for a fifth time after his starring role in Real Madrid’s first La Liga and Champions League double in 59 years.

Nigeria men’s basketball team, D’Tigers are still number one in Africa and 26th globally, this is despite failing to defend the 2017 FIBA Afrobasket title in Tunisia. In the current ranking released by the world governing body, FIBA, D’Tigers are closely followed by, Angola, Senegal and reigning champions, Tunisia.

Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has given a bonus of $US85,000 to each of the players who clinched a place at the 2018 World Cup finals in Russia. A 2-1 win over Congo Brazzaville saw them qualify for the global showpiece for the first time since 1990. The president announced the reward when he met the players and Argentine coach Hector Cuper . He congratulated the Egyptian people and expressed how happy he was with the players and the technical team’s performance throughout the qualifiers.

Organisers of the Ballon d’or the French Football is releasing the list of nominees for the prestigious award, Neymar, N'Golo Kante and Philippe Coutinho are among the first ten players on the 30-man Ballon d'Or shortlist for the 2017 award announced so far. Ballon d'Or organisers France Football have released the first ten names to be included on the shortlist and Neymar is joined by Premier League duo Kante and Coutinho.