Sports News of Thursday, 13 May 2010

Source: --

Vodafone Customers to Watch FA Cup Match at Wembley

Vodafone Ghana will, this weekend, send 10 of its lucky customers on a fully paid trip to the United Kingdom to watch the FA Cup Final at the Wembley Stadium between Chelsea and Portsmouth on Saturday.

The gesture is a demonstration of Vodafone’s obsession with its customers which makes the company seek every opportunity to make them enjoy the best football and other sporting events across the world. This is the third time, in 2010, that Vodafone is providing customers with a unique opportunity to have an exciting experience either with Hollywood superstars or watch an international football match. First, it was the AFCON final match, at Angola, between Ghana and Egypt, and then the prestigious Laureus sporting awards in Abu Dhabi.

The Football Association Challenge Cup, commonly known as the FA Cup, is a knockout cup competition in English football. It is one the best football competitions in the world with a lot of passionate following from Ghana. This year’s final is between Michael Essien’s Chelsea and Portsmouth. According to the Head of Corporate Communications at Vodafone Ghana, Ike Cudjoe , “The nature of English football with its strong African representation has made it gain grounds in the whole of Africa and Ghana, in particular. We saw the opportunity to reward our customers with the FA final, especially as Chelsea, which has a large following in Ghana, is playing.”

The ten Vodafone customers were selected through a radio pro motion that gave any Vodafone subscriber the opportunity to win and be part of the trip. The ten people will leave Accra on Friday and return a day after the FA final match. The FA Cup was first held in 1871–72. It is the oldest association football competition in the world. Because it involves clubs of the various local league levels playing against each other; and so there is the possibility for "minnows" from the lower divisions to become "giant-killers" by eliminating top clubs from the tournament and even theoretically win the Cup.

Chelsea are the current holders of the FA Cup and have made it to the final again. Kick -off is at 15.00 hrs on Saturday 15th May, 2010. Chelsea have won the FA Cup four times and losing finalists in 1915, 1967, 1994 and 2002 while Portsmouth is yet to inscribe their names on the trophy.