Remo Stars football club General Secretary, Michael Onikute, has said hosting international matches has helped in placing their stadium on the global stage.
The 5000 capacity Remo Stars stadium was opened in 2020 and hosted its first league game in 2021.
The stadium underwent significant redevelopment works involving the installation of a hybrid synthetic pitch system and broader facility upgrades.
In 2026, the hybrid pitch installed at the stadium achieved FIFA Quality Certification, becoming the first football pitch in Nigeria to receive the accreditation.
The certification followed rigorous testing for durability, ball roll, safety, and overall playing performance in accordance with FIFA standards.
Aside from hosting the home games of Remo Stars, the stadium has also served as home fixtures for Nigerian junior national teams especially the women.
The stadium will host the first leg, final round qualifier for the 2026 FIFA women’s World Cup between Nigeria’s Falconets and Malawi.
In an exclusive chat with Completesports.com, Onikute highlighted the importance of having top quality stadium like that of Remo Stars in other parts of the country,
Accorduto Onikute, having such standard facility helps in talent development.
“The key thing for sports development in any country and in any organisation is facility,” he said. “It’s important because that’s how you will be able to develop talents, you will be able to see the best of them.
“When talents in Nigeria, let’s say you play in an area where there’s no better infrastructure, if you eventually make it to where you have proper infrastructure, If you don’t project your talents in proper infrastructure, when they go abroad it’s the first inferiority complex that they get when they move abroad.
“So we try to make sure that we provide the enabling environment for our players to strive hard. And for the infrastructure that we have it’s a huge investment on us, we ensured that we got it certified by FIFA even though it’s artificial but we ensured that it’s the best quality and the best attract the best and having that here in Ikenne – Remo has put us on a global map not just in Nigeria. So we encourage private investments, government policies that deals in infrastructures of sports facilities around the country that we should have one, two, three.”
He stated that though the Remo Stars stadium is not as big like the ones in Abuja and Uyo, it is still able to attract crowd.
“Our stadium is not as big as the Uyo stadium or Abuja stadium but the key thing is that you provide the essential things that is needed. The only minus in our stadium is the capacity and what good is that you have capacity of a 20,000, 40,000 and it doesn’t get filled up. But if we have a 5000 capacity you can see on match days you have a substantial amount of people in the stadium to cheer the girls up.”
Speaking further, the Remo Stars official added:”Even if such facilities are not grade A, grade B, grade C, across the nation it helps in talent development, it helps in variety of options for Nigeria Football Federation to play this matches and it will be a good one generally for the nation and we can also breed and encourage talent in sports and that’s one key area we are missing out, the sports business is a strong business world wide and we here are just trying to see what it entails.
“If we are patient enough and plan properly, if we invest in youth development you will see that in the next couple of years the inflow of funds that would come from foreign clubs or FIFA to the nation will be massive and we will be able to enjoy it all.”
By James Agberebi in Ikenne
