Star Sport Football Academy on 6th August concluded a two-day football scouting festival for hundreds of young players at the Wusum Field in Makeni.
*According to the CEO Ing. Yankuba J. Tarawally (C-note), the two days football scouting festival was geared towards identifying talents that will be given the opportunity to ply their professional trade in Europe and other parts of the world.*
He continued that they decentralized their football scouting competition because their idea and objectives are just not only to look at talents that are centered in freetown as their goal is to be one of the best football academies in Africa.
“Freetown is not Sierra Leone. There are other places with talents, the reason most of our activities have been undertaken in the other parts of the country to see how best we can detect other talents. We have organized our activities in Bo, Kenema and Makeni because we wanted all the other regions to be involved so that the other stakeholders in those regions play their part in guiding the process for a successful outcome”, he said.
Yankuba furthered that by what they saw during the two days scouting festival tournament, which the scouts referred to as the pool of football in the world with so many talents, the scouts will be coming to Sierra Leone to look at players after every two months as they attested that millions of dollars is running into Sierra Leone but people have not been honest at all.
He maintained that the just concluded scouting competition was catered for players around the age brackets of 17-19 years, noting that they are planning to move the players out of Sierra Leone in the next one year and recruit other young players that are going to replace those that will be moved to Europe and other parts of the world.
He said they are moving assidously as they currently have one player by the name of Henry Kommeh who is on trial with a club in Morocco – ICC, who is doing extremely well, saying the agents are very impressed with his performance. “Shortly, Alie R. Kabia is going to depart for Germany to do a six-month trial,”the CEO concluded.
Youth Football Coordinator Alimamy Kurish Conteh described the football scouting competition as a step in the right direction for the young boys who want to take football as their career in the future.
He commended the entire management of Star Sport Academy for taking the bold step in giving the platform to hundreds of young players who were able to showcase their talents, admonishing all the players, especially the young ones who were not fortunate to be scouted.
“As a coordinator of youth football in the country, I have a lot of programs that will give chance to more of them to exhibit their skills and talents. Very soon, we will start the nationwide youth competition.”
He encouraged parents to help look after their children because they themselves as administrators cannot do it all without the parents.
Scout and Football Agent Peter Smith, who resides in Belgium, said he was very impressed with what he saw during the two days, maintaining that for decades, Sierra Leone’s youth football has depreciated. But expressed optimism that in the coming years, Sierra Leone players will be all over the media in Europe.
He stated that he saw great talents during the program, but only a few were scouted based on their positions and performances. He encouraged the young players not to be discouraged, and they should always keep their heads up and believe that one day their own time will come as he emphasized that they should focus on their education because if football does not work, education will.
Five teams participated in the two days football scouting festival: Star Sport Football Academy, Kholifa Stars Tonkolili, Wusum Stars Bombali, Francess FC Kenema and Academie BSB Guinea.
