The Chairman of the Federal Capital Territory Football Association Alhaji Musa Saeed Talle has asked the Organizers of the Annual All Nigerian Secondary Schools Football Competition popularly known as “NNPC/Shell Cup” the Nigeria Secondary Schools Federation (NSSF) to tender an unreserved apology to the residents and government of the FCT for the embarrassment it caused her representative at the just concluded Zonal qualifiers of the 2017 edition of the NNPC/Shell Football Cup Competition held in Katsina.
Speaking during a visit to monthly Congress of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) FCT Chapter, Alhaji Talle said that the entire football stakeholders in Abuja have remained bitter over how their representatives in that competition were treated and embarrassed in the zonal eliminations of the Championship.
“For the records, it would interest you to know that the representative of FCT in the tournament always emerged from the Annual FCT Principals Cup Competition organized by the FCT Football Association in collaboration with the FCT Secondary Education Board. During the Principals Cup, we ensure that schools present students who are within the stipulated age, and are bonafide students of the schools they are representing.
“In this year’s edition, we presented the FOSLA Academy Karshi, Abuja, the Champions of our last edition of the Principals Cup. The school was grouped alongside other eight schools in Katsina for the Zonal eliminations where one qualifier will emerge. Unfortunately to us, only ten players scaled through the assumed screening processes adopted by the organizers, which basically is through facial appearances and body built. It would not have bothered us since that remains the only accepted means the organizers of the Competition could adopt in this digital age, but the dropping of all the players from the same school that played up to the finals in the 2016 edition of the COPA Coca-Cola and Etisalat U-15 Football competitions organized by the same Federation was more embarrassing, ” he said.
Continuing, the FCT FA Boss who holds the title of Daniyan Karshi said” it is laughable that earlier in the year, the NSSF invited one of the players from the school, Chidera Prosper Ojukwu who emerged as the highest goal scorer in both the 2016 COPA Coca-Cola and Etisalat U. 15 tournaments, scoring 32 goals in all, to the press conference to usher in the 2017 edition of the COPA Coca-Cola. The boy was invited as an “Ambassador” of the tournament only for the organizers to disqualified same boy from the Shell Cup which was meant for U-17 players barely two months after”.
Alhaji Talle said despite all the formal protest made by the FCT delegation including the presentation of the players school reports from JSS 1, International passports, and even MRI reports to authenticate the actual ages of the boys, no response was received from NSSF, making Association to conclude that it was an orchestrated plan to frustrate the FCT team out of the tournament.
He insisted that if the NSSF failed to apologize to the people of FCT over the embarrassment, that they would have no option than to pull out of all NSSF organized football tournaments and formally sending protest letters to all relevant authorities that the NSSF is affiliated, until such a time that they would have device a globally acceptable means of determining the actual ages of participants in their tournament.
Also, the FCT FA boss further revealed that the Association has concluded plans to begin the first edition of the FCT Women Football League. This he said is aimed at giving the girl child in FCT the opportunity to exhibit her talent and a sense of belonging in the round leather game. He said that the League would begin on 15 July with teams drawn from all the six area Councils of FCT. He commended the Sports writers in FCT for their support and appealed for their continual support in publicizing the efforts of the FA to take football development in the Capital city to the next level.
While thanking the FCT FA Boss on behalf of members, FCT SWAN Chairman, Kayode Adeniyi called the organizers of the age grade competitions in the country to devise an appropriate ways of determining the ages of those that feature in their competitions rather than subject the innocent boys into ridicule and embarrassment. Adeniyi said SWAN will continue to stand with the Football Association to achieve its desired goals and objectives.
Packaged by Lanre Olabisi
