Access Bank Polo Day celebrates 10 years at Guards Polo Club in 2025. It is a remarkable collaboration between Nigeria’s largest bank in Africa by customers and Fifth Chukker, an impressive polo club and resort in the Kaduna State of Nigeria. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, a founder of Access Bank and Adamu Atta, the owner of Fifth Chukker, were instrumental in setting up this event. Atta, a regular player on Access Bank Day, explains the philosophy behind this event.
“We have always used polo as a platform to extend the impact of the charitable element of our partnership. We started with a focus on health before moving onto an education project. We started small – creating a school in the Kaduna region for 500 pupils. Today there are 14,000 children receiving education in this one establishment.”
Atta invited UNICEF to be involved in the partnership’s educational plans from the beginning, “they were the best vehicle to implement our vision” and this global children’s charity continues to work closely with Access Bank and Fifth Chukker. With approximately 13 million children currently not receiving education in Nigeria the funds raised from the Access Bank Polo Day have never been more important.
The money raised from this event at Guards Polo Club, plus its sister events in Nigeria and South Africa, goes towards building additional classrooms at the school, which is built on the Fifth Chukker estate. The funds are also used to support the welfare of the students and creates sports facilities for children aged six to 15. In addition to education, the school also teaches skills and business training and offers invaluable mentoring which can continue long after the student has left the school. As Atta says: “By the time the students leave school they have the tertiary skills needed to survive in the wider world.”
This year’s Access Bank Day will feature two games. A high-goal match for the Access Bank Cup featuring high-goal players and polo patrons who are either based in Africa or who have businesses in Africa. The first match of the day, for the Khalifa Cup, is a medium-goal contest along a similar format. “We reach out to the polo fraternity,” explains Atta, “but we do encourage the polo to be entertaining too [for players and spectators]!”
The impact of Access Bank Day in the global polo community ensures the team lists always read like a Who’s Who of polo. This year’s event, taking place this afternoon at Guards Polo Club, is no exception. The sport’s most famous player, Adolfo Cambiaso, is teaming up with his eldest daughter Mia, alongside rising star Paco de Narvaez Gonzalez for the Access Bank team. Atta himself will be wearing this squad’s number four shirt. Their opponents will feature three impressive Argentine professionals including one of the top lady players in the world, Lia Salvo. Her fellow professionals today are the always impressive Tomas Panelo and the hugely experienced Guillermo Terrera. Jaisal Singh, patron of the high-goal Sujan Indian Tigers team, will be wearing the number one shirt for this Fifth Chukker squad.
The medium-goal match is no less impressive. Nine-goalers Pablo Macdonough and Hilario Ulloa will take to the field for Malcomines and Manga Cement respectively. Ulloa will be joined by Deeny and Dikko Dahiru Mangal and Amirreza Behbodi, while Macdonough will play alongside Murtala Laushi, Yasin Amusan and Alejo Aramburu.
The 10th Access Bank Polo Day at Guards Polo Club may be invitation only but it is being livestreamed for the first time. So everyone can catch all of the action by tuning in to https://tv.guardspoloclub.com/. The first game is scheduled for 15.30 UK time.
Image copyright Images of Polo
