Africa’s leading pay-TV service operator StarTimes in partnership with the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL) has rolled out a project targeted at helping unearth and develope young football talents and coaches in Ghana.
The project under the auspices of the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ghana Football Association (GFA) dubbed Bundesliga Football School (BFS), is a partnership model targeted at developing and promoting young talents worldwide in collaboration with national football associations, football leagues and professional clubs to encourage talented young soccer players at the local level.
Slated for between December 14 and 18, the BFS will have 100 carefully selected soccer players (boys and girls) between the ages of 13 and 17 to receive targeted assistance in a series of compact training sessions and workshops that will enable them to showcase their talent.
To participate in the school, Ghanaian football talents (boys & girls) between the ages of 13 to 17 who can confidently exhibit their skills should download the StarTimes ON APP from Google Play Store and follow the process on the homepage to register from now until December 1, 2019.
Speaking at the launch on Tuesday, the head of marketing at StarTimes, Mrs Akofa Banson, disclosed that the one-week session will be run by experts and licensed coaches from the youth training centres of Bundesliga clubs with assistance from some selected Ghanaian coaches.
“Former German international Renate Lingor, a double World Cup winner, double European champion and triple bronze medal Olympic Games winner, together with other UEFA License A coaches such as Tobias Süveges of SV Werder Bremen, Arne Stratmann of TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, Bjoern Nass of Bayer 04 Leverkusen and head coach of the Bundesliga Football school, Birger J. Nass will lead the course.”
She stated that Ghanaian coaches will also benefit from the project which seeks to expose them to new methods of developing young talents and building a new working corporation as they work together with the German coaches.
Former German captain and 1990 FIFA World Cup winner, Lothar Herbert Matthäus, will also be in Accra during the period to engage in a legends tour campaign to encourage the young talents in footballing experience sharing.
The Bundesliga Football is a role model for youth development, with future talent emerging in the league every season, in 2002. It became mandatory for all Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 clubs to have youth academies and since then, €1.6 Billion has been invested by clubs in youth development.
The Bundesliga is, therefore, the perfect partner for this football school, she added.
Technical Director of the Ghana Football Association, Mr Francis Oti Akenteng, who represented the president of the association, pledged the outfit’s support from the programme, noting that the head of football in Ghana sees the BFS as one of the many ways of helping develop the foundations of football in the country.
BY RAYMOND ACKUMEY
