Principals’ Cup resurrects in Zenithbank-Delta Principals' Cup games in Delta

The long dead Principals cup was yesterday resurrected with a kick-off ceremony in Delta State at the St. Patrick College, play ground, Asaba.

Mr. Tony Oritse-Pemu

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State.

The Kick-off was earlier preceded by a press conference attended bythe commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Barrister Chiedu Ebie, Hideaplux Limited Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Tony Oritse-Pemu, coaches of the Delta state Sports Commission among many others. At the press conference, Barrister Ebie hinted that the commencement of the Principal Cup, which is now called Zenith Bank-Delta Principals’ Cup is part of the efforts being put in place by the state government to engage the youths as sports also plays an important role in the over all development of the child.. ‘We are starting with football first; it has he capacity to reach more youths,” he said.

He observed however that the State Government cannotshoulder all the responsibility, and commended Zenith Bank for undertaking to fund the tournament. “It is not going to be a one-off tournament. We will ensure that the tournament is here to stay. We want to use it to discover and nurture talents such that young footballers will come up and become world football stars,” Ebie stated.

He announced that the final of the tournament will be played at the newly constructed Ozoro Polytechnic stadium, Ozoro, pointing out that there will be award forwards for fair play, highest goal scorer award, golden boot award, individual awards among others.

Earlier in his welcome address, Mr. Oritse-Pemu while giving God the glory for finally making the event a reality, despite the many discouraging sign-posts, said he decided on the use of the football platform to tackle the menace of vices among the youth. “In my years of interaction with young people, especially the youth, as a Pastor I have always been interested in seeing them realize their life goal and helping them to be successful according to the purpose of God for them, and ultimately to be positively empowered to be responsible citizens, which is the first step to a better family that translates to a better society, He said.

He continued: “From experience, I discovered that a lot of our youths need mental reset to be great. I was also able t identify the fact that our young people with great sporting talents no longer have a platform to showcase and grow their talents. As a result, they now channel their energy into social vices like cultism, brigandage, hooliganism and truancy, among others.

“So I thought of engaging one of the most effective platforms to use in tackling these negative trend and what came to mind is the secondary schools being an environment where we have a lot of the youth at their emerging stages in life to choosing a career, so the task of reviving the long abandoned principals’ Cup Football competition, which was long dead, but thank God and Zenith Bank PLC for bringing it back.”

Oritse-Pemu announced that the Zenith Bank-Delta Principals’ Cup competition is a junior-tier football championship for all public and private secondary schools in Delta State. “It’s project of the Delta tate Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education that is designed to revive football at the secondary school level. Hideaplux Limited is the company designated by the Ministry to manage this laudable project,” he said.

According to him, the idea of the Zenithbank-Delta Principals’ cup is to restore the old and abandoned platform where young football talents are discovered in their prime years. “It will interest our students today that most of the football stars that you aspire to be like and are big names today were discovered at football tournaments like this, Oritse-Pemu said, adding that names like Austin J.J. Okocha, Victor Ikpeba, late Stephen Keshi, Samson Siasia, Nduka Ugbade, Henry Nwosu and a host ofothers were discovered in tournaments like this.

The completion is open to all the 1,600 government secondary schools and government approved private secondary schools across the 25 local government areas. The maiden edition is only for the male category of students, while females will be included in subsequent editions.

Mr. Oritse-Pemu also said that to participate, one must be a bonafide student of a school in the state, who must not be above 16 years at kick-off of the competition and his/her class grade must be above average.

“Encouraging academic excellence is the unique selling proposition of this competition. While the competition is designed to encourage the growth of football from the grassroots and taking sports back to schools, we are also using it to encourage academic growth of participants by ensuring that only participants with a specified minimum class performance are selected,’ Oritse-Pemu said.

The representative of Zenith Bank Plc, said the company’s motivation in funding the tournament is the determination to help identify children with talents and encourage them  ultimately become better and responsible leaders in the country.