Winners have emerged in the maiden edition of 'Ife Igbo' Peace Cup for Awka Village as Umuayom village football team were crowned undisputed champions after six weeks of hostilities following a hard fought 2-1 win over Umuzocha Village team in Monday's grand finale.

The thrilling final match was decided at the Awka Township Stadium on New Year day.

Umuzocha had opened the scoring in the  first half of the encounter but the more tactically superior and determined Umuayom brought the game to osriry before the interval and went ahead in the second half to decide the keenly contested game.

The competition tagged "No to Cultism' was sponsored by Ossy Onuko, Managing Director of Awka Capital Territory Development Authority (ACTDA) in collaboration with Jezco Oil Ltd.

Speaking after handing the cup to the winners, Sen. Ben Ndi-Obi, an elder statesman said the football competition which was the first of it's kind should be emulated and replicated in every community.

Ndi-Obi said it had the potential to address social vices because of high involvement of youths.

"I commend the sponsor for organising this competition, you can see the high involvement of youths and the great excitement.

"So, we encourage him and other individual to emulate this example in all our communities," he said.

Also speaking, Chinwe Okoli, Special Adviser to Gov. Chukwuma Soludo on Innovation and Business Incubation said such opportunity should be extended to women.

She  congratulated the teams that participated especially the winners for playing according to the rule and thanked the ACTDA Boss for providing the platform for thousand's of Awka people to enjoy their holiday.

On his part, Onuko said no fewer than 500 players from 22 teams took part in the football competition since it was kicked off on Nov. 17.

He expressed satisfaction that during the period of the competition, there was no incident of cult related killing or violence in Awka.

He assured that the competition would be an annual event with better rewards in subsequent editions.

Umuzocha and Umudioka village teams went home with cash prize prizes of N500,000 and N300,000 respectively for finishing second and third places.