Lazio winger Pedro has thrown his full support behind Barcelona’s Pedri in the race for the 2025 Ballon d’Or, overlooking high-profile contenders like Lamine Yamal and Ousmane Dembele.

The former Chelsea and Barcelona star made his preference clear during an interview with El Día de Tenerife (via Barca Blaugranes), stating that Pedri deserves the prestigious award following his outstanding 2024/25 season with Barcelona.

“Of course I’d give Pedri the maximum score,” Pedro said.

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“Then Lamine Yamal. And perhaps other candidates who are there are Dembélé or Raphinha, but I’d love for Pedri to win. For me there is no doubt: he’s the best in his position in the entire world.”

Pedri Will Be up against strong competition for the Ballon d’Or, including teammates Raphinha and Yamal, as well as other top players like Mohamed Salah and Dembele.

Despite this, Pedro’s endorsement highlights the midfielder’s growing stature in world football.

Paris Saint-Germain and Botafogo have secured their spots in the Round of 16 of the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup, after a dramatic final round of group-stage matches played simultaneously on Monday.

In a high-stakes encounter, PSG recorded a 2-0 victory over Major League Soccer champions Seattle Sounders to finish with six points.

Atletico Madrid, despite defeating Botafogo 1-0 in their final group match, were eliminated due to inferior goal difference.

All three sides: PSG, Botafogo, and Atletico: ended the group stage with six points apiece, but Atletico’s earlier 4-0 defeat to PSG proved costly, leaving them with a goal difference of -1 compared to PSG’s +4 and Botafogo’s +1.

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The results mean PSG top the group, while Botafogo join them in the knockout stage. Atletico Madrid, meanwhile, exit the tournament at the group stage: a harsh ending after winning two of their three matches.

The revamped FIFA Club World Cup sees the top two teams from each of the eight groups progress to the Round of 16, which will be held from 28 June to 1 July.

The winners will proceed to the quarter-finals on 4 and 5 July, followed by the semi-finals on 8 and 9 July, and the grand finale on 13 July at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

With eight teams already confirmed, fans can look forward to heavyweight matchups as club football’s finest prepare to battle for global supremacy.

Qualified Teams for Round of 16 (so far):

Bayern Munich (Germany)
CR Flamengo (Brazil)
Juventus (Italy)
Manchester City (England)
Botafogo (Brazil)
Paris Saint-Germain (France)
Palmeiras (Brazil)
Inter Miami (USA)
Eight more teams will join them in the coming days as the group stage wraps up.

By Joseph Ebi Kanjo

Former deputy governor of Edo State and current Director General of National Institute for Sports (NIS) Comrade Philip Shaibu, has vowed to restructure and replicate what he did in Edo sports at the institute.

Shaibu, as the deputy governor of Edo State then, and who was saddled with the responsibility of overseeing sporting activities in the state, rejuvenated sporting activities by upgrading the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium to world class with modern facilities; made sure Bendel Insurance FC were promoted from the second amateur division to the Nigeria Premier Football League (NPFL), among others.

Speaking with sports writers who visited him to congratulate him on his new appointment, the DG said, during his visit to both the Lagos and Abuja centres of the institute , he discovered that Nigeria has a lot of sporting facilities and infrastructure that can cater for the whole of Africa.

He added that because many of the infrastructure have remained unused for a long period of time, they have become non-functional and obsolete.

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Shaibu, who also mentioned that a lot of courses and programmes that ought to be run by the NIS have been abandoned and unutilised, promised to reform the NIS by bringing some new and relevant courses for coaches and athletes and expunge old and irrelevant ones.

“In the coming weeks, we are going to be restructuring the NIS in line with its mandate. There would be a lot of reforms that we are going to carry out in the coming weeks.

“We will make sure that we add to the courses in the NIS, and expunge some. We are going to upgrade the courses beyond where they are now,” he said.

He added: “Those infrastructure were built not just to produce athletes for Nigeria alone, but for Africa and the world at large.

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“I saw some equipment – brand new – but they are non-functional because they were not put into use. In fact, I saw some brand new equipment in their carton but they are not working, why? because rats and what have you destroyed them.”

The Director General, who promised to decentralise the NIS for easy access by the grassroots, noted that as a known training institute, coaches would be trained at local government level so as to eliminate a situation anyone comes on board to bear the name coach after “gathering some children.”

He added: “We’re going to be decentralising the NIS for easy access and easy reach. The mandate of the NIS when it was created 50 years ago was to have centres across the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. But we intend to go beyond the six geo-political zones because we need to go to the grassroots to deal with the issue of coaches.

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“That means we are going to be having local government training centres where we will be training those coaches with the basic knowledge they need to impact on players.”

Shaibu also promised to reactivate athletes’ hostels in the institute by making sure they are giving a phase lift and ensure only athletes are permitted to stay in the hotels. He added that the hotels are not for non- athletes accommodation either through payment of rent or any means.

Earlier, Chairman, Sports Writers Association of Nigeria, Edo State chapter, Kehinde Osaigede, who was flanked by other executives, while congratulating Shaibu for his appointment, expressed optimism that he would take the institute to an enviable level.