Benin emerges zonal champions Coco-cola Copa Cup

To emerge champions, the Benin team defeated Enugu, 2-0 in the finals played at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium. The organisers of the tournament said they used the FIFA Youth Football competition format of a round robin and knockout, to select the champions of Zone C. The zonal finals had four cities in attendance — Benin, […]

To emerge champions, the Benin team defeated Enugu, 2-0 in the finals played at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium.

The organisers of the tournament said they used the FIFA Youth Football competition format of a round robin and knockout, to select the champions of Zone C.

The zonal finals had four cities in attendance — Benin, Asaba, Imo and Enugu.

The Benin zonal champions would to now compete for medals and cash prizes at the national finals to be staged at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos on May 27, which is to coincide with the Children’s Day.

An ex-international, Waidi Akani, one of the ambassadors of the tournament, advised the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to deploy ex-internationals to the region to scout for raw young talents.

In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Akani, who was also the celebrity coach for the Benin Zone, rated the competition high saying that the standard of the games was impressive.

On how to groom the discovered talents, he said: “we need to put their details on our database and follow their progress.

“Without this, we can’t achieve the aim for which such competitions are organised.

“And this is why the NFF needs to send the ex-internationals to regions and zones to scout for young raw talents because everybody cannot be at the national level.

“The federation can deploy ex-internationals to the different zones and through this method create jobs for them to fish out talents, who will continually fill up the gaps in all the national age group teams.

“This is what is obtainable elsewhere but not in Nigeria,’’ he said, stressing regrettably, “it is at the federation level that everybody wants to be. It should not be so. We should be in the regions and zones.  (NAN)