By: Omachonu Kelvin

The draws for the 2024 SEALS Cup took place at the SRC Chambers of the Kunkle Adepeju Building on July 22 2024. The organizers opened the sales of forms a few weeks ago, and all is now set, as one of the biggest football competition prepares to take off.

The draws started by just few minutes past 4 PM and had members of the UI Sports community present, including the current UI SU Sports Secretary Adesina Daniel, the chairman of the SEAL Cup committee Ayobami Ojeniyi, and the participating departments’ sports secretaries/ministers.

The draws for the female competition took place first, and the chairman clarified that the ten participating teams would be grouped into two groups of five, with the first two in each group advancing to the semi-final.

In Group A of the draws, LARIS was pitched against Philosophy, History, Archeology/Grace Anthropology, and Nursing. Then in Group B, Linguistics, Statistics, MBBS, Public Health, and ASSE will contest it among themselves.

All the female matches will be five-aside games and will take place at the cricket pitch of the SUB Pitch. All the games will be thirty (30) minutes each – fifteen (15) minutes per half.

Then for the male competition, all the participating teams were divided into four in a bid to ensure that teams from the same faculty would not face each other. Philosophy was automatically placed in Group A because they are the defending champions of the SEALS Cup. They were placed alongside Elect-Elect, Veterinary Medicine, and Statistics.

In Group B, Agricultural Engineering waspitched against English, Pharmacy, and Microbiology.

Group C consists of Mechanical Engineering, History, Nursing, and Psychology, while Group D has Industrial and Production Engineering, Linguistics, Physiology, and Adult Education.

Meanwhile, last session’s weeping boys have yet another tough group, as they were placed in Group E, alongside Urban and Regional Planning, MBBS, and Faculty of Education big boys Human Kinetics.

Group F gas Wood Products Engineering, Architecture, Animal Science, and Political Science.

Group G consists of Civil Engineering, Archeology/Anthropology, Public Health, and Computer Science. Finally, Group F has Petroleum Engineering, Classics, Agriculture Economics, and Chemistry.

The competition will begin on Friday with the opening ceremony. Veterinary medicine and Philosophy will play in the opening game of the competition. There will be a break on Saturday and Sunday, then the competition will continue on Monday.

All the games in the male competition will have a duration of 60 minutes in accordance with the school rules. Also, a rulebook where offenses and punishment are stated will soon be released. All participating teams will be allowed to pick a maximum of three outsiders (DLC students or post-graduate).