By Rhoda Godwin
Director General of Nigeria’s biggest grassroots football tournament, the Bayelsa Governor’s Tournament, tagged the Prosperity Cup, Mr. Ono Akpe has attributed the success recorded in the tournament to governor Diri’s unwavering passion to grassroots sports development.
This year’s spectacle is expected to kick off this month across the eight local government areas in the state in 24 centers in a three category competition, which has male, female and the para category.
Mr. Akpe in an interview with journalists ahead of the tournament’s kick-off, said the governor is passionate to see that youths in the state earn a living through sports, pointing out that the state helmsman’s love for sports was the reason behind the tournament’s continuous innovation.
According to him, the governor’s direct involvement in the competition has driven members of the Central Organizing Committee (COC) to give their very best, maintaining that the local government level of the competition was the governor’s idea to ensure that players who did not make it to the money-spinning stage will also have the opportunity of being watched by foreign scouts.
He noted that apart from increasing the prize money of one million naira for local government champions and five hundred thousand naira for runner up, that this edition would see all the outstanding players in the LGA’s selected to form a team that would move to the second round, describing last LGA final as a resounding success.
On the selected local government teams, Mr. Akpe explained that the essence of the local government selected teams was to ensure that no good player is left out because he exited the tournament in the preliminary round, saying that this year’s edition would witness Most Valuable Player award (MVP) in every match.
With the sale of registration forms for season seven currently ongoing, the DG believes that more players from this season would join the players who are on the verge of traveling to Turkey, Malta and Lithuania for greener pasture, noting that five players from the previous scouting programme are set to leave the country with their visas already sorted out.
Mr. Akpe asserted that the vision of the organizers at the end of the season seven was to see more than ten players plying their trade with different European clubs, stating that the organizers of the showpiece are desirous to give the youths in the state a better life.
He stressed that the reports from the security agencies whenever the competition is on, speaks volume of the impact the showpiece has made in the state.
He further explained that each team is entitled to sets of jerseys in both male, female and para soccer including coaches, goalkeepers as well as tournament match balls, maintaining that over 250 teams receive sets of jerseys every year and another set of jerseys for any team that qualifies to the next phase of the competition.
Mr. Akpe hinted that talks are ongoing with Spanish La Liga for a potential partnership to train local coaches in the state. The reason for the exposure is to make our coaches great gaffers in the future and as well market the brand, prosperity cup to foreign clubs.
