Six Senior Secondary Schools, three each from the Northern and Southern sectors of the country are set to literally set the Accra Sport Stadium ablaze beginning Monday with a display of untainted football skills in the finals of the Fifth VALCO-Sponsored Annual Soccer Tournament.

The schools will play each other in a round robin, expected to end on Sunday, October 13. Defending champions Aggrey Memorial of Cape Coast, Pope Johns of Koforidua and Apam Secondary School would represent the southern sector while Business SSS of Tamale, Navrongo SSS and Osei Kyeretwie of Kumasi complete the list for the Northern sector.

The academicals concept, which was predominant in the Ghanaian soccer annals in the 1960s was the pillar on which the Black Stars thrived and conquered Africa.

The idea unfortunately slumped into recession after the 1970's and it took the ingenuity of the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) in the late 1990s to rejuvenate and revitalise the concept.

The vision according to the sponsors is to produce the country's future soccer stars with a sound academic background that could influence decision making, especially in their new chosen field.

The concept seems to coincidentally fallen within the GFA's five-year sports development plan, which aims, among other things, to unearth and harness young soccer talents at the grassroots to form the nucleus of the various national teams.

Great soccer countries, including France and Holland have benefited enormously from the academicals concept and it is not by accident that players from these countries dominate world soccer.

It is therefore, encouraging that the handlers of the new national under-17 team have invited seven of last year's academicals to be part of a 51-preliminary squad to begin camping at Obuasi. It is hoped that this would not be a nine-day wonder, for it is only by this that more and more young footballers would be encouraged to go to school.

Organisers of the tournament, the Ghana Education Service, told the GNA Sports in Accra that it hopes to select a crack team to represent Ghana at next year's international friendlies with neighbouring Nigeria and for a possible ECOWAS academicals soccer fiesta.

The winning school after the week-long tournament receives 5 million cedis, a certificate, medals, soccer boots and sets of jersey while the first and second runner ups take home 4 million cedis and 3 million cedis respectively plus certificates, boots and jerseys.

The last three teams would each be presented with 2 million cedis, 1.5 million cedis and 1 million cedis in an ascending order. Prizes would be given to the best-behaved school, best player and goal king of the tournament.