By Femi Atolagbe
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Our intention is to marry education with football, proprietor of Florence Joshua football academy, Mr Elvis Ogbebor, has said.

He stated this during an interview with The Sporting Hope at the end of the first edition of the academy’s inter groups competition, tagged: Dad, Mum and academy badge football competition, held at their training field at Ijapo housing field in Akure, the state capital .

He said education is the basic which every other things follows, education will surely make the kids super, but talent will make them a star, adding that when they combine both the education and talent together they become superstars .

According to him, “the essence of what we are doing here is to tell these kids that they can combine their education with their talents” .

“The academy decided to organise the competition to know good players among the kids, so that we can form a formidable team within the academy, because we want to go out to compete with other academy within and outside the state.”

He said the “academy is a full fledge registered academy affiliated to the Nigeria football federation NFF and Ondo state Football Association FA”

Patron Emmanuel Jacob FC defeated Chief Owolabi FC 4- 3 in a penalty shootout to emerged the winner of the competition after both teams had tied on four points each in the fiercely competed competition, chief Owolabi FC came Second runner up  while Prince Adedeji FC came third and Aluge FC came fourth.

While the most valuable players (MVP) went to Faustina Adum of Owolabi FC.

The proprietor added that the competition is going to be a quarterly event for the academy, to inform the people of the state that football is not only played at the State football complex, saying  there are raw talented kids in Ijapo who can make the state and the country proud in future .

According to the the patron of the winning team , Mr Jacob Emmanuel, “I’m impressed with the kids, they are young and we want to encourage them, so that they can do more “.

With what we have seen ,there is hope ,when there is hope there is future, the kids need encouragement, so that they can become a better players in future.

It is good to catch them young and groom them from the grassroot like we are doing, so that they can become a future super star.

We want to see how we can start linking the lads with established clubs in Europe and our local leagues”.

The MVP of the tournament Miss Faustina Adum ,said she was happy to win the MVP , saying her group will emerge the winner of the next edition .