ExxonMobil, Petra renew partnership for U-14 School Football

The Petra Organisation and ExxonMobil have strengthened their partnership for the second edition of the Boys and Girls Under-14 School Football tournament, which hopes to see teams placing greater emphasis on structure.

Weather permitting, seven weeks of exciting youth football is billed to start on June 8 at the Ministry of Education ground, Carifesta Avenue, in which 36 teams (24 boys and 12 girls) will vie for the two titles.

At the launch on Thursday at Cara Lodge, Co-Director of the organising body, Troy Mendonca, highlighted his aim of this year’s tournament is to see better structure from teams and the graduation of players from the U-11 tournament.

The organisers will once again be ably assisted by the Technical Department of the Guyana Football Federation (GFF).

GFF President, Wayne Forde, noted it is vital to expose footballers at a young age, as to fully harness talents. However, for tournaments such as these allowing the players to have fun is paramount, he mentioned.

For ExxonMobil this partnership is part and parcel of its social endeavours to develop communities through youth and sport, according to Senior Director of Public and Government Affairs, Deedra Moe.

Administrator Lorraine Barker-King shared similar sentiments, noting that the objective of the Ministry of Education through the Allied Arts Division is to create “balanced students”.

“This is part of us creating children that are balanced in life and from these programmes international stars can be born,” she related.

Given they are only 12 female teams that aspect of the tournament will start in the third week.

For the Boys, the top two teams from the six groups along with the best four third placed teams will advance to the Round-of-16; a similar structure will apply for the girls.

The top four teams in each division will win cash prizes, which will go towards school projects of their choice. Chase Academic Foundation and Charlestown Secondary are the respective boys and girls defending champions.

The finals are slated for July 20 and due to the current inclement weather pattern, the GFF has offered the use of the National Training Facility at Providence for matches to be held.