The annual pre-season tournament for women football teams across Africa sponsored by Ratels Sports Development Foundation (RSDF) has been renamed from Flying Officers Cup to Shero’s Cup.
The move according to the founder and president of RSDF, Barrister Paul Edeh, is to enable the organisers to celebrate more women who have continued to leave indelible mark in the anal of the society.
Briefing newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday ahead of the tournament, Edeh said, aside the name of the tournament that is rechristened, it is still the same and one tournament.
“You’ll recall that in the past four years starting from 2019, we have consistently organised a pre-season tournament for women teams across Africa to prepare them for the football season, this year is not an exception.
“For the past two seasons we have been holding the tournament under the aegis of Flying Officers Cup, but today, I’m here to announce that we are deviating from that part. Henceforth, the pre-season tournament is no longer to be known as the Flying Officers Cup, but rather to be known as Shero’s Cup. Fundamentally, it is one and the same tournament, but just that the name is rechristened.
“The reason for the name change is principally to give us an opportunity to be able to celebrate more women who have achieved no mean feats in their respective endeavours.
“Over the years and centuries, women have continued to leave indelible mark in the anal of our society and we feel that such women should be celebrated and celebrated well. That is why moving forward the name and permanent name for the pre-season tournament shall now be Shero’s Cup,” Edeh said.
Barr. Edeh who is also proprietor of the Nigeria Women Premier League (NWPL) side, Naija Ratels, this year Shero’s will hold in two different back-to-back tournaments with the Premiership clubs slug it out in the first one while the Championship, Nationwide League and other amateur teams will battle for honours in the second tournament.
“In the past we have held the preseason tournament in combined form for both teams from the Premiership, Championship and Amateur teams coming together to play in one tournament. But for this year, we decided to do something different. We are going to hold two different tournaments back-to-back. One will be dedicated principally to Premiership teams while the second is for the Championship and Nationwide League teams or even other amateur teams that are interested.
“Another interesting thing about this year’s pre-tournament, the winner of the 2022 Shero’s Cup that will be holding from November 3rd to 13th, will represent Nigeria at the African playoff to determine Africa’s representative for the Women Cup coming in the USA next year. Women Cup is an intercontinental tournament and this year’s edition had six continents represented. The next year’s event that is billed to hold in August, there will be a representative from the African continent that has never participated in the tournament.
“Also, all participating teams of the Shero’s Cup are winners from day one because the sum of N500 ,000 would be given to them each as subsidy and not the usual winner takes it all style.”
