By Nick Ibe

Nigeria has agreed an $8.5m-a-year equipment deal that the Nigeria Football Federation says is the biggest in African football. The deal will also end its 11-year association with Nike and return to adidas.

Former NFF president, Ibrahim Gusau, who resigned along with the federation’s executive committee on Thursday, disclosed the agreement at a news conference in Abuja, saying adidas will pay the federation $4.5m annually in cash and provide another $4m worth of equipment for Nigeria’s national teams.

The NFF will also receive a 20 per cent royalty on merchandise sales, a clause that could push the value of the agreement well beyond the guaranteed $8.5m annual figure.

Gusau said the contract has already been signed, though it was originally scheduled to be announced in September. He said:

“It is about the highest kit sponsorship in Africa. No other country in Africa has that kind of sponsorship.

“Adidas will pay Nigeria $4.5 million every year in cash and then they will provide kit worth $4 million every year.”

The package becomes the largest kit-supply agreement for an African national football federation, if beating Morocco’s deal with Puma, reportedly valued at $1.7m, previously the highest publicly known figure on the continent.

Nigeria’s outgoing Nike contract signed since 2015, had become grossly inadequate for the federation’s needs argued Gusau:

“As (former) president, I cannot gift someone a jersey because we met a contract that has been running for 11 years on the same terms worth $500,000 in cash and $1 million in kit supply. $500,000 in 2015 and still $500,000 in 2026. It is like you have nothing.”

Nigeria was to first sign with Nike in April 2015 due to its earlier adidas deal being cancelled over breaches during the 2014 World Cup.

Gusau said the limitations of the Nike arrangement had proven so inadequate that the federation had resorted to buying additional kits for its teams, including Nigeria’s U-20 women’s team for the World Cup in Poland.

“We have to buy jerseys for the girls that travelled to Poland because $1 million worth of equipment cannot even service Super Eagles qualifiers for World Cup and Nations Cup as well as Super Falcons,” he said.

Due to the insufficiency, the federation began pushing Nike for improved terms in 2024 but could not reach an agreement, prompting it to solicit competing offers, with Nike retaining a contractual right to match the best proposal. Gusau added:

“Finally, they agreed that we could negotiate with others. At the end of the day we contacted adidas and other kit sponsors and we were able to secure a substantial agreement with adidas. Nike has to match whatever we were offered. They were unable to match the offer from adidas and that is why we are moving on.”

Adidas previously supplied Nigeria’s 1994 Africa Cup of Nations kits and its first World Cup appearance that same year, and again from 2004 to 2014, a period that included the Super Eagles’ 2013 Africa Cup of Nations title.

Nike’s return in 2015 produced some of Nigeria’s most recognisable kits, including the widely celebrated 2018 World Cup jersey.

Adidas has a larger retail footprint in Nigeria, with about 13 stores compared to Nike’s one, and it plans to expand to 32 stores within two years. This was another factor behind the switch.

By Son Tertsegha

As the second ⁠edition of World Humanoid Robot Games kicked off at the National Speed Skating Oval for the 2022 Winter Olympics, in Beijing, a Chinese robot named Lightning ⁠has run ​the 100m in 9.32 seconds, ⁠beating the human world ⁠record, held by the Jamaican, Usain bolt, in 2009.

The humanoid, developed by the Chinese smartphone manufacturer Honor, ‌reached a peak speed of 14.5 metres per second during ‌a test event for ​the second World Humanoid Robot Games. The ​performance surpassed ​the ​9.58sec men’s ​100m world record ​set ​by Usain Bolt 17 years ago at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin.

China is in the lead of promoting humanoid robots as an emerging industry, with policymakers and companies ‌believing that these advances in AI and hardware will accelerate their deployment in manufacturing, logistics ​and consumer applications.

Lightning also won the Beijing half marathon in April in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, faster than the men’s world record. The robot stood 169cm tall and ​had ​95cm-long legs at ​the half marathon.

Researchers have since lengthened ​its legs ‌by 10​cm for these Games.

More than 2,000 humanoid robots are participating in the second edition of the five-day games, with the spectacle intended to demonstrate China’s rapid progress in advanced robotics as the technology race with the US heats up.

This edition has 51 events and more than 1,000 competitions taking place including running, table tennis and football.

The games opened the same week as Beijing held the 2026 World Robot Conference, where companies showcased around 3,000 products, including humanoid robots. China makes the majority of the world’s humanoid robots.

In what’s believed to be targeting China, last month, the US Federal Communications Commission announced a ban on imports of new foreign-made humanoid robots. The Pentagon recently also added Unitree, one of China’s leading humanoid robot makers, to its list of companies that it deemed have ties with the Chinese military. Beijing has hit back at the accusations.

At Saturday’s opening of the robot games, the organisers and robot makers said that Chinese humanoid robots defeated human world records, as hundreds of humanoid robots marched in formation on to the field in a massive display of synchronised coordination.

In a standing high jump, a humanoid robot was able to reach 2.88m, well above the 0.95m best result by a humanoid in last year’s first edition of the games.

It equally surpassed the human high jump record of 2.45m set by Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor in 1993. Both robots were from Beijing-based X-Humanoid.

Experts say humanoid robots are still mostly used for demonstrations, performances and research – at least for now – and it will take time to achieve mass real-world deployment. Some spectators at the robot games said they were excited about the humanoid robots’ quickly improving abilities.

Press reports indicate that humanoid robots are “evolving rapidly”, said Li Yanfeng, an education worker and a Beijing resident. “At first, I wasn’t very accepting of artificial intelligence. I was even a bit resistant to it, because of the possibility that it might replace or displace humans,” she said. “But now that I see this development is unstoppable, I decided to come and take a look.”

Yang Shangzheng, another spectator, said: “These sports are perfectly normal for humans, but now robots can do them. I find it amazing.” Liu Tao, who was watching the games with his son, said he was hoping to see “the best robots China currently has to offer”.

This year’s robot games – which the organisers say has 16 countries participating, among them Germany, Japan and the US – also includes other events such as weightlifting and tug of war.

By Felix Umande

Former Brazil superstar Ronaldinho has announced a sensational comeback to professional football 11 years after retiring, signing with Italian Serie C side Ravenna with the goal of scoring “a 300th goal.”

The 46-year-old, who won the 2002 World Cup and the 2005 Ballon d’Or, was unveiled on Thursday on a beach in Ravenna, ending a glittering career that last saw him play an official match for Fluminense in September 2015.

“I’m very happy to be here with friends, we have a team that can do something good,” Ronaldinho told reporters.
“Will you see me play? I don’t know, only the coach knows that. Coming back to Italy is wonderful, I’m here to help my teammates win.
“As you can see, I’m in shape, I feel good. If I could score my 300th goal, that would be even more beautiful.”

The comeback was first announced in June on the sidelines of the World Cup in Miami by Ignazio Cipriani, an Italian-American businessman who has owned Ravenna since 2024.

Cipriani said Ronaldinho’s mission is “romantic” and insisted it was not just for publicity.
“His objective is romantic, to try to score his last goal,” Cipriani said on Thursday.
“His involvement is not a token gesture or a marketing stunt to get people talking about us.”

The former Paris Saint-Germain, Barcelona and AC Milan playmaker will also become a shareholder in the club. He scored 33 goals in 97 appearances for Brazil during his career.

Cipriani confirmed that Ronaldinho will not feature against Reggiana in Monday’s Serie C season opener.
Ravenna finished third in Group B of last season’s third division and are targeting a return to Serie B for the first time since 2008.

For Ronaldinho, the move marks a return to Italian football more than a decade after his stint with AC Milan between 2008 and 2011.