Nigerian Football was again thrown into a state of mourning on Tuesday after news broke of the death of leading women football promoter and administrator, Henrietta Ukaigwe.
Ukaigwe, a member of the Board of the Nigeria Women Football League, has for several decades been at the vanguard of promoting the game of women’s football in Nigeria and even beyond these shores, playing a key role in the wide traction gained by the game from the 1990s as Nigeria’s Super Falcons relentlessly dominated the African game and became a permanent fixture in the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
The Imo State –born journalist was at the head of a crop of women’s football-passionate reporters and stakeholders who birthed the Female Football Interest Group, comprising a number of individuals who actively promoted and energetically projected the women’s game and made it an item of consequence in the media and public space across the nation from the nineties.
In a similar vein, the Sports Writers Association of the Nigeria (SWAN), Lagos State Chapter has expressed deep shock over the demise of it former Vice Chairman.
Lagos SWAN Chairman, Debo Oshundun, in a statement on Tuesday said the news of her death came as a rude shock.
“Sports journalism will miss ‘Worldwide’ as she is fondly called by friends and her colleagues,” said Oshundun.
Late Henrietta breathe her last in Lagos on Tuesday after a brief illness.