By Akeem Busari
Football fans were served a good dose of beautiful and exciting football when Ekiti United and JKF FC locked horns in the final match of the 2019 Ekiti FA cup.
Dignitaries that witnessed the epic game at the Oluyemi Kayode stadium included Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Youth and Sports, Yemi Owoseni, Commissioner for Youth and sports development, Adewunmi Awopetu, General Manager, Ekiti Sports Council, Chief Deji Samo, among others.
And it took fifteen minutes of the exciting football before the impressive crowd saw the first and only goal of the encounter that came through right back Afisu Jelili, who slot in the ball from a scramble in the box to send the crowd into wild jubilations.
The NNL side who are the defending champions of the competition showed greater intent to carry the day as they continued to create and repeatedly spurned several chances to bury the game through former Lobi stars marksman Tolulope Ojo and captain Tope Alao.
However, the spirited efforts of hard fighting JKF FC to restore parity in the second stanza of the exciting match that had crowds on the edges of their seats was unsuccessful as forward Francisco Iloh was guilty of missing chances that came his way.
Speaking during the half time break, Commissioner for youth and Sports development Honourable Adewunmi Awopetu commended the Ekiti state football association for a job well done.
He further praised the Ekiti youth for always doing the state proud through sports and other means.
“We must commend Ekiti youth for always making the state proud, I and the permanent secretary was in Abuja yesterday (Friday) where some youth in Ekiti state were honoured by the presidency and were also given scholarships” he stated gleefully.
For individual honours at the competition, three players tied on the top scorers chart with two goals apiece, but the award went to highly-rated young striker Tolulope Ojo of Ekiti United who scored two goals and one assist.
Ekiti United made it triple honours on the day as captain of the side, Alao Temitope, was also declared the Most Valuable Player of the competition.
A total of 13 teams participated in this year’s competition.
The two finalists, Ekiti United and JKF FC, will represent the state at the national preliminaries of the AITEO Cup.
