GTBank, LASG Collaborate On Sports Development

The Lagos State government has granted GTBank the sponsorship rights of the annual Principals Cup, a foremost sporting competition among secondary schools in the state.
GTBank last year entered into a strategic collaboration with Lagos State government in the area of sports development. 
The competition introduced by the government as far back as 1940 for three years ending 2012 serves as a platform to foster camaraderie as well as identify local football talents at grassroots level while encouraging them to stay at school.
The final match stages of this year’s event come up in different venues in Lagos. The semi finals for both male and female teams will be played at Campos Stadium on Monday 29th and Tuesday 30th of March respectively while the finals and closing matches would be played in April at Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere.
Speaking at a media parley recently, Femi Adeniran, head, Media and Corporate Communication of the bank, gave reasons behind its huge investment in the laudable competition. The bank among other reasons said sports is a good platform through which academic excellence could be achieved among students. In addition through the programme it aims at creating local football stars who will be the country's ambassadors to the international community, further enhance its business relationship with its host community, Lagos State, by partnering with them in their efforts at revamping the sporting event as a social and economic development tool, and to create role models for society through discovery, career development with its attendant empowerment of local football talents which abound in the country.
He explained that the sponsorship deals come in three parts which includes the establishment of heritage sites, Tournament Ambassadorial Programme (TAP), and Players development Programme (PDP).
Schools with long standing participation and pedigree in the competition have entered the honours list of Heritage Sites. For this year, St. Gregory's College, Ikoyi; Birch Freeman College; Eko Boys High School as well as Anwaru Islam College made the list. They will be honoured at a ceremonial unveiling of the Heritage Site Pylon by the schools alumni and the GTbank executives at a future date yet to be announced. The occasion will also be spiced up with a novelty match among the schools.
The TAP is a mentorship programme developed by the bank to impact on students in the public secondary schools through capacity building. It involves motivational talks and interactive sessions by renowned professional in different fields of endeavour to challenge them to aspire to achieve excellence in the chosen career as well as become accountable. Unlike the TAP which has to do with the intellectual development, PDP is a special career development initiative designed to train and showcase young football talents to the national and international community.
Giving a progress report on the event so far, Adeniran said a total of 449 matches including 413 zonal preliminaries, 1 district finals and 24 state quarter/finals have been played by the 313 schools earmarked to participate in the tournament at inception on November 30, 2009.
52 of the participating schools have had their sporting infrastructures upgraded. The bank made a donation of balls, nets, corner flags, lining of pitches, weeding, and construction of pitch panels and upgrading of goal posts. A special tournament website has also been created.
Meanwhile the bank has assured that by the end of the sponsorship deal, it would have been able to embark on a complete overhaul of the sporting facilities in these schools.