Izuchukwu OkosiThe Zambia Army have promoted Copper Queens captain, Barbara Banda to the rank of Staff Sergeant for leading her country to the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
The Zambian women’s national team overturned a 2-1 deficit in the first leg against Morocco to beat the Atlas Lionesses 2-0 in the reverse leg of qualifiers to the women’s football tournament of the Olympics this autumn.
The Zambians who were eliminated in the group stage of the last Olympics in Tokyo qualified 3-2 on aggregate and thus joins Nigeria as the African representatives in Paris.
Banda scored the first of the two goals in the 39th minute of the game but it went into extra time after a stalemate in 90 minutes.
The skipper who is making a return to the national team fold after a period of absence due to a FIFA suspension over her gender status then made it 2-0 in the 105th minute.
Morocco are the deputy African champions in women’s senior football cadre.
The football event of the Olympics starts late July.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
