Football: Airtel Cup - Airtel presents cheque to SFF |28 July 2017

. Cup competition enters quarterfinal stage

After the Airtel Cup quarterfinal draw was made on Tuesday, yesterday the competition’s sponsor, Airtel Seychelles, presented the Seychelles Football Federation with a cheque which will go towards the running of the remaining stages of the tournament as well prizes for the winners.

The cheque for R300,000 was presented to Seychelles Football Federation (SFF) treasurer Jonathan Paul by Airtel Seychelles managing director Amadou Dina Seychelles at the company’s headquarters at Providence.

This was done in the presence of SFF chief executive Georges Bibi, other members of the federation and staff of Airtel Seychelles.

Mr Paul conveyed an apology on behalf of the SFF chairman Elvis Chetty who was absent at the presentation and thanked Airtel Seychelles for its continued support to Seychelles football.

“We very much appreciate Airtel’s continued support, especially in these tough financial times and we hope that in the future we can enhance this partnership in a way that benefits both parties,” added Mr Paul.

Mr Dina, on his part, reiterated Airtel Seychelles’ focus on sports development, pledged the company’s support as much as it can.

“I am happy that it is now 14 years since we have been holding this tournament and look forward to keep on seeing this tournament getting bigger and better,” he added.

Mr Bibi also accepted from Mr Dina a set of kits that the officials will wear as from the quarterfinal stage.

Held in a knockout format for the first time this year, it is confirmed that there will be a new Airtel Cup champion this year after the elimination of holders St Michel on a 2-1 aggregate score by The Lions, coached by Gavin Jeanne.

In the draw which took place on Tuesday evening, The Lions were drawn against St Louis, who had sealed passage to the quarterfinals after defeating league leaders Côte d’Or after penalties as the contest was tied after two legs.

Côte d’Or though have been brought back to the tournament as one of the ‘best losers’ as they were eliminated by St Louis only through penalties and they will now face Red Star Defence forces, who sealed their passage with a 4-3 win after extra-time over Revengers.

In fact, Revengers have also been brought back in the tournament after their extra-time loss. Revengers had won the first leg 2-1 against Red Star Defence Forces and after 90 minutes of the return leg, they were behind by the same margin, meaning extra-time was need to decide a winner, where Red Star Defence Forces scored.

Revengers have now been drawn against Northern Dynamo, who eliminated Foresters courtesy of a 4-1 thrashing in the first leg to go through despite a goalless draw in the second leg.

The other quarterfinal tie will see Anse Reunion face off against LightStars. LightStars beat La Passe 5-2 on aggregate in the first round, while Anse Reunion booked their place after a 3-2 aggregate win over St John Bosco.

Speaking to Sports NATION, SFF chief executive Bibi said: “This format is something we have been forced into due to the fact that we now have seven teams from Mahe, compared to five teams from Praslin and La Digue. Therefore we could not have two groups drawn with teams from Mahe separated from those from Praslin and La Digue.”

“We used this format to see how we can move forward, but it does have its defiance as it could be an issue if a team who were eliminated and brought back now go on to win it. But I think it has made things more interesting and we will still need to improve next year, where we could perhaps even bring in teams from the second division. The problem with that though is that the Airtel Cup is supposed to be solely for top division teams,” he added.

Mr Bibi revealed that as next year will be the 15th Airtel Cup, there are plans to make some more improvements to the tournament, but for this year he said that as from the quarterfinal stages, there will be man-of-the-match awards after each match and also a player of the tournament trophy when the tournament is over.

S. N.