Pres­tige Hold­ings KFC fran­chise is the new spon­sor of the pres­ti­gious Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League In­ter­col com­pe­ti­tion to the tune of $300,000 af­ter the 15-plus years of Co­ca-Co­la be­ing the ti­tle spon­sor came to an end last sea­son.

This af­ter it was an­nounced dur­ing a launch at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre in Bal­main, Cou­va, on Thurs­day, that KFC will be the new spon­sor of the com­pe­ti­tion, which will fea­ture 47 teams in the boys' com­pe­ti­tion, in­clu­sive of 17 from the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion and 30 from the zon­al Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sions, and in the girls, 30 schools be­ing rep­re­sent­ed.

In his brief ad­dress, Roger Ramb­harose, vice pres­i­dent of KFC and Piz­za Hut Trinidad and To­ba­go, not­ed that there is some­thing spe­cial about school foot­ball.

He added, "For the play­ers, it's the pride of pulling on that jer­sey, know­ing you rep­re­sent some­thing who wears your colours of your school and the pride that you dri­ve. For the sup­port­ers, it is the an­tic­i­pa­tion, the ri­val­ry, the be­lief, and this could be your school's year.

"In­ter­col brings all of that to­geth­er, and to­day, KFC is proud to be­come part of that his­to­ry and that 15-year lega­cy as the of­fi­cial ti­tle spon­sor for the 2026 Girls and Boys In­ter­col com­pe­ti­tion.

"Our spon­sor­ship will be to the val­ue of over $300,000: $250,000 in cash, and over $50,000 in meals and added sup­port.

"So big round of ap­plause for the en­tire team that made this pos­si­ble. Our theme says it well: "Where school pride meets foot­ball pas­sion". But be­hind that pride and pas­sion are young peo­ple with po­ten­tial and peo­ple who work every day to help them re­alise it."

Ramb­harose was quick to point out that his com­pa­ny's ex­ist­ing com­mit­ments to San Juan Jabloteh in foot­ball and KFC Clark Road Unit­ed in crick­et re­flect their be­lief in the val­ue of sport and the new part­ner­ship with the SS­FL al­lows KFC to ex­tend that com­mit­ment through school foot­ball, where sport­ing de­vel­op­ment and ed­u­ca­tion come to­geth­er.

He added, "For the first time, we got in­volved with youth foot­ball via San Juan Jabloteh. Now, we're not the ti­tle spon­sor for San Juan Jabloteh, but the pres­i­dent of the club came to us with a de­vel­op­ment plan, and for the first time, we in­ject­ed mon­ey in­to San Juan Jabloteh.

"And it was the first time San Juan Jabloteh had won the Un­der-15 ti­tles for Trinidad and To­ba­go. So, a big round of ap­plause for San Juan Jabloteh and their youth team, and the sup­port of cor­po­rate T&T.

"This is an im­por­tant les­son to learn. We all have a du­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and more so now as things are dif­fi­cult. For KFC, this is a nat­ur­al con­nec­tion.

"We en­ter this part­ner­ship with the in­ten­tion of build­ing a re­la­tion­ship be­cause when we sup­port school foot­ball, we sup­port more than the game. We sup­port the young peo­ple who will shape what comes next for T&T."

Lawrence Seep­er­sad, the gen­er­al sec­re­tary and trea­sur­er of the SS­FL, not­ed that the league re­mains com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing a struc­tured, com­pet­i­tive, and de­vel­op­men­tal foot­ball en­vi­ron­ment for sec­ondary school stu­dents through­out T&T.

"Our com­pe­ti­tions are de­signed not on­ly to pro­mote ex­cel­lence in foot­ball, but al­so to en­cour­age dis­ci­pline, team­work, sports­man­ship, and a holis­tic de­vel­op­ment of our stu­dent ath­letes.

"The leagues in the In­ter­col foot­ball pro­gram are or­gan­ised in­to sep­a­rate boys' and girls' com­pe­ti­tions, with each com­pe­ti­tion ini­tial­ly hav­ing its own zon­al com­pe­ti­tion in the re­spec­tive five zones of the league, where the win­ners of these zones (4:25) ad­vance in­to a na­tion­al com­pe­ti­tion.

"The boys' In­ter­col com­pe­ti­tion com­pris­es schools that par­tic­i­pat­ed in the SS­FL's pre­mier­ship and cham­pi­onship di­vi­sions league com­pe­ti­tion, that is, 47 schools, where­as the girls' In­ter­col com­pe­ti­tion com­pris­es schools that par­tic­i­pat­ed in the SS­FL cham­pi­onship di­vi­sion league com­pe­ti­tion, that is, a to­tal of 30 schools. Schools are seat­ed in ac­cor­dance with the po­si­tion in which they fin­ish in the league com­pe­ti­tion.

"The com­pe­ti­tion or­gan­ised in its re­spec­tive zones pro­vides op­por­tu­ni­ties for our stu­dent ath­letes to par­tic­i­pate in an or­gan­ised and com­pet­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment.

"The com­pe­ti­tions are struc­tured to fa­cil­i­tate par­tic­i­pa­tion across var­i­ous ge­o­graph­i­cal zones of T&T, in­clud­ing schools from To­ba­go. The num­ber of par­tic­i­pat­ing schools varies ac­cord­ing to the zone.

"For the pur­pose of clar­i­ty, the par­tic­i­pat­ing teams are dis­trib­uted as fol­lows, boy's pre­mier­ship 17 as in­di­cat­ed, boys' cham­pi­onship 30, and girls' cham­pi­onship 30 teams."

The boys' com­pe­ti­tion kicks off on Wednes­day with the East, North Zone and South pre­lim­i­nar­ies and will con­tin­ue in the North Zone next Fri­day (No­vem­ber 13), and in the South Zone a day lat­er.

The quar­ter­fi­nal rounds will get go­ing in the Cen­tral Zone, South Zone and To­ba­go Zone next Fri­day as well, fol­lowed by quar­ter­fi­nals again in the East and South on No­vem­ber 16, and the North, a day lat­er.

Fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of zon­al com­pe­ti­tions on No­vem­ber 27, the na­tion­al play­offs will kick off on De­cem­ber 1, with the quar­ter­fi­nals fea­tur­ing the To­ba­go cham­pi­ons and Cen­tral cham­pi­ons, with the win­ners ad­vanc­ing to the semi­fi­nals against the South Zone cham­pi­ons.

The oth­er semi­fi­nal will see the North and East win­ners clash­ing for the oth­er place in the na­tion­al fi­nal card­ed for De­cem­ber 9.

Pri­or to the start of the tour­na­ment, the top five teams in the Pre­mier Di­vi­sion, which con­cludes on Tues­day (No­vem­ber 10), will be hand­ed byes.

Last year, Na­pari­ma Col­lege claimed the Co­ca-Co­la Na­tion­al In­ter­col crown, their record ninth win, with a 1-0 vic­to­ry over Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va, with Jabari Ro­driguez scor­ing in the 23rd minute af­ter a de­fen­sive mis­cue by Sig­nal Hill goal­keep­er Kaleb Romeo.

The win se­cured the triple crown for coach An­gus Eve and his Na­pari­ma team for the sea­son af­ter they al­so won the SS­FL Pre­mier Di­vi­sion and South Zone In­ter­col ti­tles.