Story by Mthokozisi Dube
FOOTBALL academies are taking a proactive approach to junior football development with a focus on staging more tournaments to give young players an opportunity to showcase their talent.
Junior football development suffered a severe knock due to COVID-19 restrictions, but the future looks bright with more tournaments being held.
Bulawayo’s Titans Academy has since taken a proactive approach after hosting a three-team tournament featuring Gweru based All Stars and Bulawayo’s Asante Sana academies in the under-15 and 17 categories.
“As academies, we were not spared by COVID-19 -19, but we remain optimistic that we can get back on track by staging more tournaments hence we decided to start by hosting our counterparts from Gweru, said the Chairperson of Titans Academy, Sylvester Machingu.
The Chairperson of All Stars Bullet Academy Amon Nyoni, said, “For us, this is the second tournament in one week. We have been to Harare and we must confess that the tournaments are valuable to our players who had lost hope of ever playing football. We will continue to engage in these tournaments as part of our efforts to get the boys occupied especially in view of drug abuse issues which are on the rise nowadays.”
Meanwhile, Aces Youth Soccer Academy has been confirmed as an official member of the United Nation’s Football for the Goals initiative, which provides a platform for the worldwide soccer community.
This comes on the back of the academy’s strategic partnership with clubs such as FC Malaga City Academy of Spain and US’s Camp NexGen, which has seen the academy sending players abroad for training camps.