No fewer than 1,000 private and public secondary schools in Delta State would participate in the 2019/2020 edition of the Zenith Bank Delta Principals’ Cup tournament kicking off with preliminaries on Monday, September 23, across the various 25 local government areas of the state.
The State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Patrick Ukah made the disclosure during a press briefing in Asaba, Wednesday, to flag off the tournament which is being sponsored by the Zenith Bank Plc.
Ukah disclosed that the first match would be played on 30 September at St Patrick College, Asaba, adding that it would not be a ceremony yet would form part of the tournament.
According to him, the preliminaries would start in the LGAs on September 23 and would end on October 11. He said that there would be eight zonal finals which would commence on the 16th to the 21st of October 2019. “The quarter finals would be played in four venues on the 30th October 2019. The semi finals would be played in two venues on 4th November 2019”, he said.
He noted that the finals in different venues would be spread all over the state. It is designed that the matches would be played in venues convenient to the teams that are playing so that the travelling period and distances would be reduced as much as possible.
He revealed that the third place finals would be taking place at the Stephen Keshi Stadium, Asaba and that would also be the curtain raiser for the finals. We are going to peg the age of the players at sixteen. Those from 17 and above should go to the national team, he said.
Ukah who described the tournament as a huge editions, said, “For this year’s tournament , we are coming up with a lot of remunerations: Cash prize for the winners at the local government level; we are going to make sure that we institutionalize the tournament so that the date of the commencement and that of the ending would be known, and like it is done in the past, principals’ cup starts in the first term of school calendar and ends in the first term.”
He commended Zenith Bank for providing students the channel through which they could channel their energies to sports rather than engaging themselves in cultism and other vices.
He disclosed that discussions were rife on how to grow the tournament bigger. “We’ve have the headmasters cup and now the Zenith Principals Cup. It is believed that should be the breeding ground to preparing the stars that would take over at the elite level of sports”, he said.
The representative of Zenith Bank Plc, Dickson Egede in his speech, promised that the annual ‘Catch Them Young” initiative football event is certainly going to be an improvement from the previous editions, saying the bank was committed to the development of youths in supporting various endeavors in the country.
While appreciating the partnership the bank has with the state, he urged the organizers to ensure fair play during the competition to ensure true winners emerge. It is our commitment that as a bank, we should continue to explore ways of bringing value to the development of the state to boost the existing relationship.
The consultant, Tony Pemu disclosed that the efforts had been encouraging as many other states in the country were willing and ready to copy from Delta State on how the rebirth of the principal’s cup became success.
Speaking on the success of the tournament over the years, the head of technical committee, Lucky Sunday, said many talented players got from the previous competitions were having invitations from Europe and have been playing for their various clubs.
Mercy Enoch, Asaba
