2016 COPA Coca-Cola Tourney: Registration commence March 7

Football fans across Nigeria will be treated to the best of amazing and unforgettable School Football in Nigeria, as the 2016 COPA Coca-Cola national championship calls for teens to register for the game.

The registration forms will be available for schools at the State Ministry of education offices between 7th and 27th March 2016.

The preliminary stages of the competition would be conducted between 18th and 22nd April 2016 while the States finals will be between 25th and 30th April.

The group stages would be played from 4th till 14th of May while the final to be hosted in Lagos would be from May 29th to 5th of June.

The world’s largest brand-supported grassroots football initiative COPA Coca-Cola, led by the global beverage giant, Coca-Cola, connects and engages teens with the prospect of attaining their football dreams, encouraging them to bond, form new friendships, and acquire significant social skills through team involvement.

This year, the ‘Join in a Team’ emphasises team spirit, where they can also imbibe values like focus, reliability, loyalty, creativity and trustworthiness.  Several matches would be played in 32 cities across the country, with over 3000 schools participating in the 3000 matches that would bring together over 60, 000 players. This is a significant leap from last year, 2015, where matches were played in 10 cities, among 144 schools, and with about 2,160 players.

The event has been divided into three stages, the grassroots, group and final stage. At the grassroots stage, interested schools in each state will be allowed and encouraged to participate, and 32 qualifying teams will represent each state of the federation at the group stage. In the Group stage, each region will be divided into groups from which a winner will emerge from the tournament sequential structure for the next round. The final stage is the National Finals, which would be hosted in Lagos, and its grand finale will be played in a National Stadium.  At the tournament, four female teams - two matches will be exhibited during the national finals. The players would also benefit from coaching clinics at the group stage.

Commenting on the initiative, Marketing Director, Coca-Cola, Patricia Jemibewon, said, “Coca-Cola like Football is enjoyed across the world, and creating an experience by bringing these two sources of inspiration together to benefit players and help them mature into world-class players, is an important way to influence the society.“This year, we have introduced an opportunity for the players not to only pursue their football dreams, but to also understand the importance of playing different roles in a team, to inspire valuable life lessons like confidence, sociability and teamwork, on and off the pitch.”

Jemibewon also explained that COPA Coca-Cola remained committed to opening up opportunities for several teenagers across the world through their shared passion for football while encouraging them to engage in physical activities that would keep them active and healthy.

COPA Coca-Cola is one of the several platforms Coca-Cola creates to engage young people and encourage potentials among Nigerian teenagers.

However, winner of this year’s tournament would go home with the sum of N1, 000, 000 (One million naira), second place would be rewarded with N500, 000 (five hundred thousand naira) while third place would be given N250, 000 (two hundred and fifty thousand naira).