By Amaechi Agbo
Idah Local Government Area of Kogi State emerged the champions of 2018 Fosla Academy Football Tournament held in Ida, Kogi State.
The young Under 13 boys defeated Omala Local Government Area by 2-1 to become champions of the Kogi State version of the 2018 edition of the FOSLA Academy U13 Football Competition.
The match which was played at Qua Iboe Primary School Ida on New Year Day, saw the goals scored in both halves of the game.
By emerging champions, the young lads from Ida pocketed the sum of N50, 000 star prize along with a giant trophy while the runner up, Omala LGA went home with N30, 000.
Speaking at the end of the encounter, the Proprietor of Fosla Academy and former President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Alhaji Sani Lulu Abdullahi commended the teams for exhibiting good understanding of the game, and expressed optimism that the talents discovered would further be enhanced when they get into the Academy.
With Kogi tournament over, the management will now focus attention to the Federal Capital Territory, FCT tournament which is scheduled to commence in April.
The Fosla Academy Screening tournament holds in two phases – phase one is in Kogi State while phase two holds in Abuja.
In kogi 10 local governments always participated while 6 Area Councils of the FCT including Karshi which is the catchment area where the school is located participate in that of FCT tourney bringing the number to seven.
According to the team manager, Fosla, Mr Ibrahim Mohammed Lawal “after the FCT tournament, selected players from kogi will face the selected ones from the FCT and the best 10 will be selected from the two teams.
“The venue of the last phase of the tournament is the school premises
“We select players from different schools who will represent their various Councils. But they must be students coming from primary schools or already in jss1 and Under 13 years of age.
“The same thing applies with the girls. About five girls have already been invited from Kogi that will join the ones that will come from FCT,” he explained.
On how the management selects the students, Mr Lawal said “There are coaches from these Area Councils that will go round different primary schools in their localities and inform the players’ parents of the tournament and bring them. Some parents come with their children that are under the care of the coaches.
“But before they come for the tournament we do arrange with the coaches to get them together and we give them date that we will visit each Area Council for pre-screening. This we do to get the best U13,” he stated
Ida and Omala LGAs qualified for the finals during December 2017 preliminaries. The final rounds of Fosla Academy’s Scholarship Screening exercise in Kogi State saw 22 players being shortlisted to participate in the general and last screening process to be held at the academy’s headquarters, Karshi, Abuja in April.
The tournament is basically for the 10 LGAs from Kogi State 22 of the players selected from the tournament will jostle for the ten scholarship slots available for naturally endowed players at the FOSLA Academy Karshi, Abuja.
The FCT version of the tournament will take place in April.
