Four Schools Battle for Two Tickets to Zenith/Delta Principals’ Cup Final

The 2023 edition of the Zenith Bank/ Delta Principals’ Cup football competition is now in final stages as the semifinal matches take centre stage today.

Delta Principals’ Cup is a grassroots developmental event organised for all secondary schools in the state and sponsored by Zenith Bank.

The four qualifiers emerged in the quarterfinal encounters decided on Friday. They are; Illah Grammar School, Illah, Umuaja Secondary School, Umuaja, Institute of Continue Education (ICE), Sapele and Government College, Ughelli.

And in the fixtures, Agbor Stadium will host the semi between Illah and Umuaja just as Oleh Stadium is the venue where ICE will clash with Government College.   

To get to this stage, ICE defeated Essi College in the last eight stage, Umuaja defeated Community Quality Secondary School 3-1 while Ilah scaled through 7-6on penalties against Model Secondary School Asaba. Full time score stood at 1-1.

Government College Ughelli edged out Ewu Government School on technical grounds. The semifinalists were leading 1-0 when the match was stopped because Ewu fielded ‘mercenaries.’

CEO of Hideaplus, organisers of the tournament, Tony Pemu, explained that it was important to protect the integrity of the competition.

“We discovered that some players who featured for some schools in the early stage of the tournament were paraded by Ewu against Government College. We had no choice than to disqualify them.

“The semis will be very entertaining because all these four teams have done well consistently this year,” Pemu noted.

The Third Placed and final matches of the competition are billed to take place at the Stephen Keshi Stadium Asaba on Thursday November 30.