NNPC/SHELL Cup To Start Across Nigeria.

The NNPC/SHELL Soccer cup has been regarded as a platform for the resuscitation of Nigerian Academicals football competition.

 Its representative, Tony Attah, who made thus statement while speaking with Sports journalists, on the 15th edition of the All Nigeria Secondary Schools Football Competition, said the NNPC/SHELL Cup has become one of Nigeria’s leading youth football tournaments that feature regularly on the nation’s educational and sports calendar.

Attah, who believed the competition has transformed into a successful reference point for sports development through schools, said the non age-group event had provided a viable platform for all students to demonstrate their skills with a chance of being invited into the nation’s age-grade teams.

According to him, the competition has begun this week across the nation as the state finals would be concluded between first and second of December 2012 wile the zonal preliminaries scheduled to hold in nine centres would be decided in December.

 He believed that football players discovered during the competition would have the opportunity to grow into the national and international stars like Solomon Okonkwo, Isaac Promise, Chinedu Obasi, Femi Opabunmi, Ambrose Vanzekin and others.

 Group General Manager, National Petroleum Investment Management Services, Morrison Fiddi, said the competition taught students tolerance, respect, courage and self discipline.

President, Nigeria School Sports Federation, Mallam Ibrahim Mohammed, urged corporate bodies to emulate the sponsor of All Nigeria Secondary Schools Football Championship by investing in grassroot sports in a bid to improve the dwindling standard of sports.

 Mohammed, appealed to the sponsor to earmark certain amount of money to sponsor the discovered students to enroll in credible football academies in Nigeria, adding that part of the prize money meant for the eventual winners should be expended on sports equipment.

A total sum of eight million naira has been set aside for the winners as the winner gets three point five million naira, runner up to grab over two million naira while the third place team gets a million naira.