After a five-and-a-half-year hiatus from active sports journalism, Toyin Ibitoye returned to the beat last week following the completion of an acclaimed and highly successful tour of duty as the Media Officer of the Super Eagles. And leading sports production and marketing company, HotSports Nigeria Limited has finalised plans to formally welcome back to the beat the brilliant and resourceful purveyor of sports news and information whose experience cuts across the print and broadcast media.

The event slated for Studio 2 inside the company’s sprawling television production complex in Ikeja, Lagos, takes place on Sunday, November 8, 2020, from 4:00 p.m.

Leading the welcome party will be Taye Ige, President/CEO, assisted by top officials of the company. Expected to grace the event will be Ibitoye’s friends and family members, top officials of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) and other leading lights of the football confraternity in Nigeria, sports editors and managers of Nigerian newspapers and programmes on radio and television.

In a release he personally signed on Sunday, Ige said: “On behalf of the teams at both HotSports Nigeria Limited and HS Studios, Nigeria’s leading sports marketing company and owners of the largest television production complex in the west coast of Africa, I wish to extend my heartfelt salutation and congratulations to our colleague, Toyin Ibitoye on the successful completion of his tour of duty.

“The HotSports team would like to recall, with immense gratitude, how pleasurable it was working with Toyin in the last five-and-a-half years, especially during our several activations in furtherance of our roles as both the official media partner as well as marketing consultant to the Nigeria Football Federation. We all know how difficult access to the national team camp can sometimes be. This became significantly easy for us to achieve under Toyin’s watch, making both our editorial and marketing activation responsibilities much easier to carry out. It has thus been a privilege working with Toyin and now it's an honour to celebrate the legacy of hard work and exceptional dedication to duty he has left behind for his successor.”

Ige further said: “Secondly, that the Super Eagles largely delighted us with good results on the field of play during Toyin’s tenure, qualifying for both the Africa Cup of Nations and the FIFA World Cup finals in grand style (in some cases two matches ahead) is also evidently traceable to the quality of ‘technical assistance’ Toyin afforded the team’s chief coach, Mr Gernot Rorh. It is not for nothing that, in informed circles, Toyin was regarded as the de facto assistant to the national coach as he was reputed to put at Rohr’s disposal his awesomely rich knowledge of Nigerian players, their current status in their various clubs both home and abroad as well as advise the coach on the best formations to adopt based on options of players available at any given time.

“It is for these services to our Company and to our dear country that we wish to thank you and formally welcome you back to the profession we know you have always loved. We know your passion for sports journalism and we are almost certain that you can’t wait to get back to it.”

•PHOTO: From left… President/CEO of HotSports, Taye Ige; Super Eagles coach, Gernot Rohr; Toyin Ibitoye; and former Brand & Marketing Director at NTA-Star TV Network, Qasim Elegbede

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