The prestigious Principals Cup, the only organised school football tournament ended Sunday with another thrilling finish, exciting enough take memories to another year. The tournament is now a fixed calendar in the programme of the Gambia Secondary Schools Football Association, an affiliate of the Gambia Football Federation GFF.
Bankrolled by the GTBank, the tournament is as lucrative as it is competitive with individual prizes running into tens of thousands of dalasis and a few fantastic stay at the Independence Stadium for teams who made into the final phases.
This year, Muslim Senior Secondary School girls repeated their conquering feat of last year to grab the Principals Cup in that category with a 2-0 spanking of debutants Gambia Senior in the final.
The scene for a thrilling evening was set by Kaddy Bayo who scored the opener before the tournament’s best female player Ola Buwaro, scored a stunner to make it 2-0.
Other awards in the female category went to Lidia Preira who took home the best goalkeeper award while Fatou Dukureh of third place Bottrop Senior won the leading goal scorer award.
In the male category, Essau Senior Secondary School made history transforming themselves from rookie champions when they beat fellow new comers Mahad 1-0 to claim the title.
They made this spectacular success relying among other things on the consummating skills of Matarr Saine who was fittingly awarded the tournament’s best male player. Matarr Sidibeh of Armitage Senior Secondary School scored 4 goals to win the leading goal scorer award and Salifu Bojang of Mahad won the best goalkeeper award.
. In total eight male and eight female teams competed with the winners in each category raking D100, 000.00, D75, 000.00 and 50, 000 cash prizes for winners, runners-up 1 and 2 respectively.
Winners are also presented gold, silver and bronze medals. All 16 teams were provided jerseys, balls, and whistles, among many other items.
Source: Corporate Affairs Unit GTBank
