Onyeme Kicks Off 2024 Zenith Bank/Delta Principals’ Cup, Says Football Teaches Perseverance

The acting governor of Delta State, Sir Monday Onyeme, says football is a game that teaches people how to persevere and face challenges of life.

Onyeme stated this at the kick-off of the 2024 edition of the Zenith Bank Delta Principals’ Cup at the St. Patrick’s College, Asaba, yesterday

He said: “Football, as we all know, is more than just a game. It teaches us invaluable lessons of life on how to handle victory and defeat and to persevere in the face of challenges.

“Students gain experiences on team work that facilitates achieving a common goal. These lessons will serve the students well in all areas of life. Players across the globe have become billionaires plying their trade across many countries. Let us use this competition to justify the saying of catch them young.”

In her own submission, Dame Adaora Umeoji, the CEO of Zenith Bank, represented by the branch head, Asaba, Dr. Ifeanyi Attama, thanked the state government “for giving us the latitude to contribute to grassroots football talent discovery at both primary and secondary school levels simultaneously.”

Tony Pemu, the Consultant to Zenith Bank and CEO of HideaPlus, said, “This is the 7th edition. Every year, we keep improving on the process. We may not be able to totally eradicate age cheats and the use of mercenaries but so far, we can pride ourselves to say we have reduced this to the very minimum.

“As at today, we have introduced the use of NIN. We’re working with NIN to ensure that every school is verified. We do our screening by use of NIN. Beside that we have been able to partner a few international academies to ensure that some of the talent that we would discover would be able to migrate into some major leagues.

In the official Kick-Off Match, Basic Secondary School defeated Mixed Secondary School both of Asaba, by a lone goal scored in the 13th minute of the encounter by Okwuchukwu Victor.