The Bayelsa Governor's Football Tournament, touted to be the biggest grassroots soccer fiesta in Nigeria, was initiated by the immediate past governor of the state, Senator Seriake Dickson. Fortunately, when the incumbent governor, Senator Douye Diri came on board, he saw reason to continue from where his predecessor left, so he adopted, and expanded the competition to the admiration of everyone.
When Dickson initiated the competition in 2015, little did he know that like the proverbial grain of mustard seed, it will grow into a giant tree, that will become the platform not only for youths to express themselves but also to serve as a source of livelihood for them.
Over the years, the competition has been improving by leaps and bounds. For instance, when it started in 2015, it had just about 100 teams but today it has grown to over 200 participating teams and it is getting bigger by the day.
In the beginning, there was only the male category but the competition has now grown to have the male, female as well as para-categories. The female and para-soccer categories started about two years ago. When it started in 2023, only five female teams registered. Surprisingly, by last year, the number of registered female teams jumped to 22! That is a measure of how big the competition is getting.
This year the para-category promises to be big as it has been expanded to cover not just teams from Bayelsa State but the entire Niger Delta region.
The alias of the tournament too has changed. When the competition started, the alias was "Restoration Cup", in line with the manthra of the initiator's administration. Today however, the alias has changed to "Prosperity Cup", a reflection of what incumbent governor, Douye Diri's administration is all about.
Another novel idea was introduced into the competition in 2021. Foreign scouts were brought in to monitor the players in the course of the competition with a view to picking the outstanding ones among them, who will eventually ply their trade overseas. Nigerdeltaconnect gathered that some players discovered from last year's competition are on the verge of travelling abroad.
There has been a bumper increase in the prize money with the total package jumping from N20 million to N50 million. The winners of the male category will smile to the bank with N10 million, up from five million Naira, champions of the women's category will be five million Naira richer, an improvement of the previous one million Naira while the sum of three million Naira has been set aside for the para-soccer category.
The competition recently saw the introduction of local government finals, which was not the case before now. The present format gives football enthusiasts at the local government level something to look forward to. The beauty of this innovation is the fact that it comes with monetary gains. The winners in each local government area gets one million Naira while the runners-up get N500,000.
Yet another innovation introduced this year is the fact that outstanding players at the various local government levels, whose teams are eliminated at the preliminary round, would be selected and give an opportunity to showcase their skills at the later stages of the competition when the foreign scouts would have come into the picture. Ordinarily, good players whose teams got eliminated prematurely would not have had the opportunity of exhibiting their talents before the foreign scouts but now that problem has been solved.
Equally new is the fact that Man of the Match (MOTM) would be selected after every match and this goes with a little "package". The selection of MOTM is expected to start from this present edition. Nigerdeltaconnect gathered that as part of the organisers plan to put as much money as possible in the hands of the players, stipends would be given to teams from the round of 16 as they progress.
This season, in addition to the bumper increase in the prize money, the resourceful organizers have come up with the novel idea of including three professional players to spice up the tournament and add glamour to it.
While changes have been creeping in here and there to spice up and also improve the competition, the primary purpose of hunting for budding talents at the grassroots, remains unchanged.
