3 aspirant Ghanaian footballers under the age of 14 will soon be the beneficiaries of a 3-week all expenses paid to the Aspire Academy in Qatar where they could be selected for a scholarship to facilitate their development as professional players. Now in its 6th year, the Aspire football Dreams is a project with the sole purpose of identifying future football stars in developing countries. Designed and created by former director of training centre and of grassroot football of FC Barcelona Josep Coloner, Aspire football Dreams is an extension of Aspire Academy for Sports Excellence in Qatar, a world class academy for sports with an additional facility in Senegal.
According to Captain Andy Sam, President of Aspire in Ghana, 50 of over 600,000 entries of people born between January 1 and December 31 1999 received nationwide in the first phase have been chosen to play in the national finals scheduled for the El-Wak Stadium in Accra from September 26 to 29 from where the three best will be selected for the finals in Qatar come February next year.
“Absolutely successful, it’s been overwhelmingly successful. Every year we are professional in the way we run things and we are happy that one of our boys John Benson played in the Black Satellites team that won the U-20 World Cup in 2009. He was voted the MVP in the 2005 event that had the likes of Emmanuel Frimpong and Jack Wilshere of Arsenal taking part. We will continue to work very hard to keep on selecting very good players and making sure we have the caliber of players to succeed,” Captain Andy Sam told 90 MINUTES.
