Kwesi Nyantakyi reiterates GFA's commitment to juvenile football at launch of 5th edition of Airtel Rising Stars

Published on: 15 June 2015
Kwesi Nyantakyi reiterates GFA's commitment to juvenile football at launch of 5th edition of Airtel Rising Stars
Kwesi Nyantakyi deleivering his speech at the launch of the Airtel Rising Stars

Kwesi Nyantakyi insists the development of players from the juvenile level especially through the school system remain a priority of the Ghana FA.

The GFA boss was amongst dignitaries at the launch of the 5th edition of the Airtel Rising Stars in Accra on Monday.

The Rising Stars is an annual football talent-hunt initiative of telecommunication giants Airtel.

The competition for both boys and girls has helped unearth several football talents across Ghana with a chunk of them forming the nucleus of Ghana’s juvenile teams, especially the female division.

This year’s edition which starts in Ho in July promises to be even more exciting than last term where 20,000 participants were recorded.

GFA President Kwesi Nyantakyi lauded the continued support of Airtel towards developing juvenile football through the use of education.

A section of the dignitaries present at the launch of the Airtel Rising Stars
A section of the dignitaries present at the launch of the Airtel Rising Stars
 

“In times past many though football was a sport only for school dropouts,” Nyantakyi said.

“But we’ve all come to appreciate the fact that footballers with some level of education possess certain unique qualities over those who are not educated.

“One example I always make reference to is the 1988 Olympic team of Russia where the minimum qualification for their athletes was a Master’s Degree.

“So you had some of them holding PhD’s and so on and that will be strange thing here in Ghana.

“But this shouldn’t be the case and therefore the GFA is particularly excited by the initiative of Airtel who are using the school system to unearth talents for our nation.”

Managing Director of Airtel Ghana Lucy Quist shared a chilling story of how her outfit’s aim of unearthing football talents is directly linked to education.

“There was this little girl in school who never imagined running,” she narrated.

Airtel Ghana MD Lucy Quist
Airtel Ghana MD Lucy Quist
 

“But then there was a situation where someone was needed to run 1500km for her house and this girl thought to herself, ‘what is the worst that could happen’.

“She went ahead to run the race and many others but even though she never became renowned, she rose to become the person who runs Airtel Ghana [herself].

“So this tells you clearly that our aim of raising football talents through the school system is very vital for the human resource base for our country.”

This year’s format for the Airtel Rising Stars remain unchanged with the 10 regions clustered into four zones.

Winners of each zone will converge in Sunyani later this year for the finals.

Black Stars player Richmond Boakye Yiadom and Ghana U20 star Godfred Donsah were also present to endorse the Airtel Rising Stars program.

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