Two-time Nigerian basketball league most valuable player and founder of the Louis Edem Foundation, Louis Edem Ekpenyong is no longer a Partner at Crown Elite Sports.
The American based Information Technology engineer made the decision to step away from Crown Elite in order to focus on immortalizing his father’s legacy through his newly formed foundation, Louis Edem Foundation.
The one-time West African university league MVP, who in Febuary 2023 after the inaugural Louis Edem Invitational Basketball Championship committed 100 million naira to basketball development in Nigeria, said the decision was made due to the enormous responsibility running the foundation’s activities.
“We spent over 11 million naira running the championship and I see organizing events not just costs money but requires a whole lot of forward planning for proper execution”.
The elite championship which ran from February 7-11th 2023 at the national stadium in Lagos, saw Nigerian league champions and Basketball Africa League representatives Kwara Falcons emerge champions, taking home the two million naira, reward with Spintex Knights of Ghana taking home one million naira as runners up.
The Louis Edem Foundation intends to run the championship twice every year and has hinted the next championship will be hosted in Ghana with atleast 5 Nigerian teams featuring.
“My goal is to scale up the impact on the Nigerian players and expose them since nothing is engaging them at the moment. With the kind of work this requires, I cannot take up any other additional responsibility. We are taking the Louis Edem Invitational to Ghana in August/ September, so planning has begun for it”.
With the events for 2023 benchmarked. The Louis Edem Foundation has put together a 10-year plan which Edem believes will innovate the basketball eco-system in Nigeria.
