Ten Thousand Schools To Participate In NNPC/SHELL Cup.

A total of ten thousand public and private secondary schools are expected to participate in the Seventeenth edition of NNPC/Shell All Nigerian Secondary Schools Football Championship.

The annual football competition sponsored by NNPC and Shell Petroleum Company of Nigeria, SPDC, will kick-off next Tuesday with states finals while the zonal preliminaries would be concluded in May, 2015.

The Manager, Sustanable Development and Community Relations of Shell, SPDC, Igo Weli, who spoke through Yomi Adeleye, Manager, Social Investment, said a number of players who had been discovered through the championship had gone to have a high profile career in football.

While mentioning Okoronkwo, Vanzekim, Ogbuke, Opabunmi, among the players discovered, Weli, said Idowu Akinjide, who played for National college, Ughelli, in the 2012 edition, was part of the victorious Golden Eaglets that won the FIFA Under-17 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates.

He explained that ten talented players discovered during each edition would be awarded scorlaships which would cover the cost of each awardee's secondary school education, adding that a total of eight point two million naira is usually awarded towards the development of sports in the top four schools.

He stressed that, the top ten discovered players would be eligible to compete for Shell University Undergraduate Schorlaships.

Secretary General, Nigeria School Sports Federation, Olabisi Joseph, said the sponsors had set a pace for the development of Nigeria's future stars through various schools sports, thus, creating a platform for socio-cultural integration among Nigeria youths.

Joseph, called on other companies to emulate NNPC/Shell to provide finacial support for the growth of school sports in Nigeria.