Onoriode Akpe: We’re using Bayelsa Governor’s Cup to harness football talents

The brain behind Bayelsa State Governor’s Cup also called ‘Prosperity Cup’, Onoriode Kelvin Akpe, has said the youth football tourney is being used to discover and develop the talents that abound in the oil-rich state. In this interview with Trust Sports, the astute football administrator spoke on the numerous achievements made since the inception of […]

The brain behind Bayelsa State Governor’s Cup also called ‘Prosperity Cup’, Onoriode Kelvin Akpe, has said the youth football tourney is being used to discover and develop the talents that abound in the oil-rich state. In this interview with Trust Sports, the astute football administrator spoke on the numerous achievements made since the inception of the ‘Prosperity Cup’ in 2015 and the unflinching support from Governor Douye Diri.

 

You conceived the idea of Bayelsa governor’s Cup in 2015. Nine years later, how has it been?

First, I want to thank the Lord Almighty for this vision to organize the Bayelsa Governor’s Cup. We actually tried to put it together in 2014 but we couldn’t. We finally hosted it in 2015. The tournament is borne out of the need to harness and develop the talents that abound in the state. So, I and others came together and floated this tournament to see how it will help engage our youths in football development. We put our own resources together to kick-start it and after, we got the buy-in of the government. The then Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Seriake Dickson supported us and we started the first edition in Nembe, because Sampson Siasia stadium was under renovation at that time. Since then the competition has been very interesting, very exciting but equally very challenging because the more the tournament grows, the more the challenges.

In concrete terms, what has the tournament achieved in more than nine years of existence?

I will use this opportunity to go through a small trajectory of the tournament. First, after the 2015 edition, we had the 2016 edition and the 2018 edition and then 2019 edition which was the most successful, because then Minister of Sports, Chief Sunday Dare, came in as a special guest at the final. In fact, he described the tournament as the ‘largest grassroots football tournament’. It is indeed the largest football tournament in Nigeria and in Africa based on the number of youth clubs that entered for that edition. At the end, we sent a select team of players to Cape Verde for the African Youths Cup and that team came third. That was an enviable feat. That team came back and we kept them in camp and they eventually played in the Bayelsa League Cup and against all odds, they emerged the winners. So, that really encouraged us to. We continued with it in the new administration of Senator Douye Diri, and I must really commend the governor who was a commissioner of sports in the previous administration for his unrivalled commitment to the development of sports, especially football and the ‘Prosperity Cup’. When he came in, he first sent for me and asked about the arrangement for the tournament and I briefed him, and he said he was interested to ensure that more youths of Bayelsa are given the necessary support to succeed in their chosen career. With his Excellency’s support, we have had so many scouting programmes. We have scouts from all over Europe and Africa, especially South Africa who come to scout our players. Today, we can boast of our products like Okardi and Nestor who are playing professional football in Europe and other African countries like Egypt. So, we must say that our talent discovery process has yielded great dividends. In the last edition, we were equally blessed to have the NFF president, Alhaji Ibrahim Gusau and members of his board in attendance. In the final, they watched exciting football which is comparable to the NPFL. The Most Valuable Player of the tournament, Akpos Godbless and the highest goalscorer, Junior Christopher, were immediately scouted and signed by Bendel Insurance.

Are there plans to expand the tournament?

The tournament started in 2015 with 110 teams, now we have over 200 teams that are playing. Last year, we introduced the female and para-soccer editions. So, we now have three tournaments in one. The female edition started with just four teams last year, now we have over 20 registered teams in the tournament which is equally another positive development. Of course, from the last edition, some female players that we discovered were invited to Bayelsa Queens, and we hope that this year, more will be discovered and developed to play professionally. This year, we also introduced another novelty, that is the local government finals and in all the local governments we went to, we saw great talents.

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How about introducing age grade competitions in the tournament, maybe for U-13 or U-14 players?

First and foremost, the basic idea of this tournament is for community development and interaction. We want to make sure there is inter-community engagement, there is peace and tranquillity, there is relationship among the various communities in the state. So, for this purpose, we have teams from various states of the country who are resident here partaking in the tournament. We didn’t set up an age grade process because we want everybody who is interested in playing football at the community level to play. However, our talent hunt process is to discover the youths of Bayelsa from the ages of 14, 15, 16 to the ages of 21. While the tournament is going on, our focus is to discover young talents, and we try to ensure that the teams have such age-grade players.

The ongoing edition is about to enter round 32, what are the positives?

We have very exciting teams that have qualified. We have two teams from each local government that qualified but Yenagoa, having eight centres, has about 16 teams that will go into the round of 32. So, they will slug it out until they get to the round of 16, then the final which has been proposed for the 19th of July, depending on the availability of our special guests.

How bright is the future of the ‘Prosperity Cup’ tournament?

Prosperity Cup has turned into a brand. It is a brand that is known globally now. We get calls from the UK, from Germany, in fact, we have a proposal to take our players to Ghana to participate in a tournament organized by a German organization this year. We also have preposition to select some players and take them to Portugal, So, all these things are on the table, but we are looking out for a time when we will have a brand sponsor that will take over the sponsorship of this tournament, without government putting any reasonable resources, maybe just the trophy and prize money. We are looking for the brand sponsor that will take up the bills and make sure that youths of Bayelsa are taken off the streets and begin to be gainfully engaged. So, we would like to call on the corporate world, the oil multinationals, to key into this tournament to engage our youths. With the promise of Governor Douye Diri, who has given us all the support, we think that we should have at least ten community fields developed, at least one in every local government area because if the players play on a very standard field, their level will improve. So, once we have these ten community fields, you can imagine what will happen in these fields every evening or early in the morning. You will be taking at least 200 youths off the streets. We are really excited and believe the best is yet to come for the Bayelsa Governor’s Cup.