Organisers of the ongoing Nestle Milo Secondary Schools Basketball Championship, the Nigeria School Sport Federation (NSSF) has said there is no going back on sanctions for schools caught using mercenaries’ during the championship.
President of the NSSF, Mallam Ibrahm Muhammed who spoke through the secretary of the body, Bisi Joseph, said stiffer penalties have been lined up for the erring schools.
“We know that it is not easy to totally eradicate the use of mercenaries in the championship but we’ve put in place measures that would help us to drastically reduce it.
“Part of the measures is to expel such schools from participating in future editions of the championship for two years as well as expelling the officials that aided the use of ineligible players.
“We will not stop at that as there are other measures that we would take to ensure that we will not tolerate the use of mercenaries in the championship.
“This is a championship that is meant for students still in schools and not those that have passed out of schools,” said Muhammed.
Meanwhile, the hostilities in the Confluence Conference of the championship holding in Lokoja, Kogi State which began last Wednesday, April 22 will end on Wednesday, April 29.
Champions from Adamawa, Borno, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kogi, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara are slugging it out in the Conference in both the male and female categories for the national finals.
It will be turn of the Atlantic Conference from Thursday, April 30 to Wednesday, May 6 with matches taking place in Benin, Edo State.
Participating states are Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Ebonyi, Edo, Enugu, Rivers and Imo. Action will shift to the Central Conference from Thursday, May 7 to Wednesday, May 13 with centre at Akure with the following participating states in attendance: Bauchi, Benue, Gombe, Kaduna, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Niger, Ondo and Plateau.
Western Conference will hold its matches in Ibadan from Thursday, May 14 to Wednesday, May 20 with the participating states: Anambra, Delta, Ekiti, FCT Abuja, Kwara, Lagos, Ogun, Osun and Oyo.
At each of the Conferences, the first placed teams in both the boys and girls categories will go home with the championship trophies and various amounts of cash rewards for the development of sports facilities in their respective schools.
Meanwhile, the national finals will come up from June 1 to 6 at the Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos with Saturday, June 6 being the grand finale.
Every team participating in the national finals will receive N200, 000. Winners will go home with additional N150, 000 for first place, while the second and third placed teams will receive N120, 000 and N100, 000 respectively. They will also receive trophies, Milo goodies and lots of Milo to drink.