The Guyana Oil Company (GuyOil) and its partner Tradewind Tankers on Tuesday renewed its sponsorship of the Petra Organisation’s Under-18 Schools Football League, now in its third year.
A sponsorship package of $4.8 million was handed over to the Petra Organisation for the eight-team tournament, which kicks off on September 18 and runs until November 6.
Vying for top honours will be Dolphin Secondary, North Ruimveldt Secondary, President’s College, West Ruimveldt Secondary, Golden Grove Secondary, Christianburg Secondary, Cummings Lodge Secondary and Friendship Secondary.
Co-Director of the Petra Organisation, Troy Mendonca, speaking at a press conference at GuyOil’s Providence office, explained that the eight teams were drawn from the recently concluded Milo Schools Football tournament, another venture of the Organisation.
The teams will play each other once, at the end of which the school with the most points will be declared champion. A top prize of G$500,000 is at stake, while second to fourth will receive G$300,000, G$200,000 and $100,000 respectively.
The cash prizes aside, the winner and runner-up will be invited to participate in the KFC Invitational tournament, also coordinated by the Petra Organisation.
They will be joined by four other teams, two from overseas and two from the hinterland, Mendonca outlined.
What they said
Bryan Joseph- Technical Director (ag), Guyana Football Federation: “I’m happy that we’re back in the schools and our boys and girls are having these opportunities.
Directly from this we have a national U-17 team that is entering into the Concacaf qualifiers and I know a great deal of those players would have actually come from teams that would have played in these Petra tournaments. As a matter of fact, it’s a great avenue for us to scout.”
Berkley McCalman- Bulk Sales Executive, GuyOil: “The idea for the football tournament was first presented in 2018 by the Petra Organisation and became an annual event for us. However, due to world crisis, we weren’t able to facilitate in 2020 and 2021.
With things returning to normalcy and our commitment to making a positive contribution to the development of our youths and community, there was no question on whether we would have come onboard for a third time.”
Melissa Dow-Richardson- Assistant Director of Sport: “Here it is we have government support through the Ministry of Sport and the Ministry of Education, the national association responsible for football and we have corporate Guyana supporting a local organising entity in a very powerful way.
Sport will continue to develop with the support of the corporate sector, with the support of the private citizens and the communities.”
Kurt Brathwaite- Ministry of Education PE Department: “The Ministry of Education is always willing and ready to collaborate with other organisations when it comes to the development of young people. We’re very, very happy to see Petra continuing to ‘push the envelope’ as it relates to football.
From our standpoint, we’ve been trying to get sport back in schools the way it’s supposed to be. Only this week we would have concluded a few camps with young children from different parts of the country focusing on different sports, and just the same we would want to do the same for football.”
