By Oghenekevwe Laba
LAGOS JULY 19TH (URHOBOTODAY) Ex-Governor of former Bendel State, Dr Samuel Ogbemudia has commended Lecturer of Delta State University, Dr Bonnyface Peter Opia’s initiative for inventing a new football game tagged, ‘The Beautiful Ball Game’.
Making the commendation during the unveiling and proclamation of the game at the EHJ Guest House Conference Hall, St Leo Catholic Church, Ikeja, Lagos, in a goodwill message read by Hon. Jim Okolocha, the former Governor pointed out that Opia’s invention would cause dramatic shift in football relations in favour of Nigeria, adding that he foresaw that it would elicit the animosity of leading football nations and share the market of FIFA.
According to him, “Dr Opia has fought many battles. But there will be many more battles to fight including of course FIFA. But let me say that if boxing has as many as six world bodies, there is no reason why football cannot have two. This means therefore that this humble effort can easily bring the headquarters of another World Football body to Nigeria.”

Speaking exclusively to Urhobotoday, an online medium, immediately after unveiling and proclaiming the Beautiful Ball Game, Opia who recalled that he conceived the idea of the game in 1990 during his undergraduate years at the University of Benin, but the actual development of the game started in 2008 and was completed in 2009, disclosed that he was motivated to embark on the venture by his desire for a world that can be beautified by a sport which will promote harmony and unite humanity using philosophies, concepts ways, and means that are lacking in existing sports.
Opia disclosed that the game was invented with three goals in mind which are promotion of peace and conciliation, promotion of gender equality and equity and promotion of education and learning, stressing that the choice of these goals was shaped by his early experiences which happened to have coincided with the cold war era.
The lecturer who affirmed that the game comes with a number of novelties in field design, rules and method of outlined the modalities of the game thus:

“The game is played to achieve goals. The goals are embodied in crowns. The game is performed by 12 players. The 12th player is typically humanoid and will be robotic. The 12th player bears the crown that players in which the goals are embodied. With particular reference to the goal of achieving peace and conciliation between divided societies, a line in the field for the game called the line of restrain is situated at the 38th meter mark to draw attention to the conflict between North Korea and South Korea. A unique feature of the new game is the role of a 12th player which bears a crown in which the goals that players seek to accomplish are embedded, a feature that is inspired by a feature of baseball and cricket. It is a game in which penalty kicks can be taken with no goal keeper in post. Goals scored under some conditions such as last minute goals are doubled.”

Beyond entertainment, Opia who pointed out that the beautiful game seeks to promote peace and conciliation maintained that they would invite leaders of nations particularly the United States, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and North Korea to see the game as having the potentials of fast tracking the process of resolving the Korean conflict and reconciling separated families.
“The introduction of the beautiful game at this time in history is a testimony of how our creative thoughts can be translated into tangible outcomes that will transform society. We are not unmindful of the fact that sports lovers all over the world have overtime gotten used to existing sports but the beauty of novelties is that they promote competition which creates value for society members,” Opia explained.
He called on the people and government of Nigeria to lend their support in adopting the beautiful game in resolving critical national questions.
“Given the overall ramifications of the novelty for development, we invite leaders of nations, captains of industries to embrace and support this game. We call on all lovers of novelty, innovation, freedom of expression, association, diversity etc to support our desire to expand the depth and breadth of choice and opportunities, Opia appealed.