Nigeria second tier outfit Kwara United have been thrown into mourning following the sudden death of one of their players Saka Azeez on Friday.

According to the club’s spokesman Abdulwaheed Bibire, who confirmed the unfortunate incident to supersport.com, the defender slumped and died during a training session at the Kwara State Stadium in Ilorin.

He further explained that the head coach John Obuh was drilling the team in a two-on-two session when the incident occurred.

Bibire added that Azeez did not complain of any pain and even attended an award ceremony prior to the day of his death with his father, Kasali Lasisi, a former Nigerian and African table tennis champion.

“It happened in the early hours of today. We were having our training session as usual inside the Kwara State Sports Complex. In fact he had no contact with anybody. They were playing two-a-side and then the ball went out of touch.

“From the tactical formation that the coach John Obuh and the players were being drilled through I think he was one of the players who was likely to feature in our next match. So the ball went out of the pitch, the goalkeeper restarted it by touching it to the right-back, and he was just moving with the hope of having the ball touched to him. Suddenly it looked like something hit him, without contact from anyone, and the next thing he went down.

“We are really in shock here because there was no prior complaint of pain from him. This was a young man who followed his father to an award ceremony yesterday. He happens to be the biological son to Kasali Lasisi. In fact when the father collected the award, he handed it over to him,” Bibire told supersport.com.

The Kwara United media officer also informed that Azeez, who joined the Nigeria National League (NNL) club from Zamfara FC this season, was one of those who passed their medical tests at the start of this campaign.

“Before our closed door camping in Minna ahead of this season, we held a health workshop and also medical tests for all of our players, including Azeez and they were certified healthy and in good shape. His death leaves us pained and in shock too,” he said.

Bibire revealed that the remains of Azeez will be buried “according to Islamic rites” on Friday. (Supersport)

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