Sponsor of the annual NNPC/Shell Secondary School Football Tournament has announced that a total of 8.2 million naira will be up for grabs in this year's edition of the competition scheduled to kick off with state preliminary matches on Friday, February, 12.

External Relations Communications Manager of Shell Petroleum Development Company, Mrs. Sola Abulu told Extra Time that winners of the 18th edition of the flagship grassroots football competition for secondary schools in the country will go home with 3.5 million naira, while the first runner-up will take home 2.3 million naira. The third and fourth placed teams will also be going home with 1.3 and 1.1 million naira respectively.

According to her, the competition which was conceptualized to lay the foundation of academic and football success for youths in the country has sustained the founding vision of promoting education and football simultaneously among secondary school students even as she stated that talent discovery will start from the first match of the tournament thereby giving opportunity to highly talented players whose schools might not make it to the finals.

"In our efforts to ensure a quality competition that meets its purpose, we are giving opportunity to every secondary school in each state and the Federal Capital Territory to register for the competition.

"Talent discovery is also going to start from the first match of the tournament thereby giving opportunity to talented payers whose schools may not make it to the finals to stand the chance of being discovered by scouts," she said.

Reacting, President of Nigeria School Sports Federation (NSSF), Malam Ibrahim Muhammad explained that the competition will kick off with the state preliminaries from February 12 - 22 with the state finals coming up between February 2 and March 2. Winners from various states will meet in the zonal series to be played in Katsina, Minna, Jalingo, Ilorin, Uyo, Owerri, Ugheli, Oshogbo and Akure between March 11-15 with the quarter- finals coming up at Ijebu- Ode, Ogun State between April 25– 27. The semifinals and finals will be decided at Teslim Baloguin Stadium, Lagos, on April 29 and May 5 respectively.