In a bid to unearth young and budding talents from the grass root, the Federal Ministry of Youth and Sports Grassroot Sports Development Department in conjunction with Nigeria Volleyball Federation organized a National U-17 Intra-Zonal Female Volleyball Competition.
The competition which is taking place simultaneously in all the six geo political zones in the country saw the North Central Zone competition proper start today, 25th of June, 2021, in Jos the Plateau State capital with four states in attendance.
Speaking with journalists, Mr. Saka Akeem, Zonal Coordinator, North Central Zone, Federal Ministry of Youth and Sport Development, said the competition serves as a process for selecting national female junior players that will represent the country in a competition coming up next year.
“The male junior national team is doing well, but we don’t have such for the female, so the essence is to give the grass root players the opportunity to exhibit their talent, from there we can now pick the best players that will form the national team.”
“This competition is taking place simultaneously in all the six geo political zones and we have national coaches and technical directors sent to each zone to go and pick the best players from this tournament. The selected players will now be brought together to form the national team and they will be invited to camp to be groomed and trained because next year there will be a competition for their age grade, so it is important we groom them towards that competition”, Akeem said.
The North Central Zone saw Plateau, Nasarawa, Kogi and the FCT competing for honours. Benue, Niger and Kwara could not make to the competition for various reasons according to the Mr. Saka Akeem.
The first match of the day saw Team Kogi defeat Team Plateau by 2 sets and in the second match Team FCT defeated hard fighting Team Nasarawa by the same margin. Team Kogi qualified for the final after defeating Team Nasarawa by 2 sets to 1 to set up a clash with Team FCT on day 3 of the competition.