1000 Youths Storm Awolowo Stadium For Airtel Soccer Talent Hunt

About 1,000 youngsters from 7 states which comprise Kwara, Ogun, Ondo, Osun, Ekiti, Kogi and host Oyo have converged at Obafemi Awolowo Stadium, Ibadan to vie for a place in a talent hunt programme organized by telecommunication giant, Airtel Nigeria, tagged ‘Airtel Rising Stars’ which commenced on Monday 5th to Friday 9th.

King Okon, Project Adviser to the organizer who spoke to newsmen at former Liberty Stadium, venue of the event said Airtel Nigeria that initiated the talent hunt programme nationwide since 2011 hopes to sift through millions of youths to identify young stars that would excel in the game of football.

He however, commended the standard displayed by all the participants especially the female players that mostly came from grassroots team within Ibadan.

Okon who expressed optimism on the chances of the Ibadan girls getting to the final phase of the screening exercise said “this event is in phases, after this stage we are going to the national finals and after that to African championship after Arsenal FC will come from England to organize camping to pick the best from Africa to their academy.

“The standard of play we have seen so far from Ibadan here is quite impressive, we have seen many promising and gifted players here, especially from the female, I’m sure girls from here have the required skills to get to the final stage of this exercise”.

“The training and screening here are very thorough as you can see that all teams brought players that falls into the stipulated ages for this exercise which is 13 to 17 years, as we have tried to really reduced the age cheat by talking to players and not their coaches so that the objectives of this programme would not be defeated which is talent discovery and not the tournament”, he noted.

The organizer however commended the effort of the body that partnered Airtel on the programme, Oyo State Chapter of Youths Sports Federations of Nigeria (YSFON)’s technical team led by Akinkunmi Akinpelu, for a well job done in screening the kids.

Akanbi Agiri