Glo Soccer Academy completes first Day of screening

Hundreds of male teenagers between the ages of 14 and 17 this morning thronged the Kumasi Paa Joe Stadium for the much anticipated two-day screening exercise for young Ghanaian talents for the Glo Soccer Academy, seen as West Africa’s biggest soccer talent hunt involving youth from Ghana, the Republic of Benin and Nigeria.

The Kumasi screening exercise is also the cue for an exciting three-nation TV Realty show, which will convey the thrills and excitement of the selection processes, the two tier training programmes in Lagos and Old Trafford, and the award of prizes to successful candidates to viewers in the three countries.

Prospective candidates in Kumasi and its environs are being screened for two days, after which the technical team will pitch camp in the northern city of Tamale and subsequently back to Accra in the south and on to six other screening venues in the Republic of Benin and Nigeria.

Teenagers streamed onto Paa Joe Stadium at KNUST as early as 6:30am and by 3:00pm some 70 young players had been screened by the international technical team comprising retired football stars and celebrity coaches Tijani Babangida, Chief Zion and Ghana’s Tony Baffoe, and veteran coach Abdul Razak.

Officials of Glo were forced to set up registration centres at the stadium to accommodate a large number of teenagers who sought to register at the venue instead of simply texting their personal details and preferred screening centre to the text code ‘3836’ provided for the purpose.

''The Academy's primary objective is to harness and promote the best football talents available in the entire sub-region and it is not our intention to leave any good material behind. I am confident that by the end of the two days, we would have selected the finest and most prospective talents in this region ’’, Mr. Kayode Mobolade of the Events and Sponsored Assets Unit of Glo Mobile Ghana told reporters.

He disclosed that out of the number of youth who thronged the Paa Joe Stadium today, some 90 have already been successfully screened and that the collective assessment of the technical team will determine who will be selected and who will be dropped.

‘‘The first day has been very encouraging; we may have been able to screen a much larger number of players if many of them had not decided to register personally at the screening venue. But by all indications, we will be able to screen twice as much the number we screened today, ‘’ he said.

At the end of screening, thirty-three (33) shortlisted players would be destined for camping at the Glo Soccer Academy facility in Lagos where they would be trained by top coaches from West Africa and a technical team from Manchester United Football Club.

After one month of training, sixteen (16) finalists will be selected to attend a training tour of the Manchester United Soccer schools and will be awarded mouth-watering prizes which include cash prizes and school scholarships.

The most valuable player (the MVP) would in addition win the princely sum of sixty thousand Ghana Cedis (GHC60, 000) while the remaining 15 finalists would take home twelve thousand Ghana Cedis (GHC12,000) each.

To register in Ghana, prospective candidates for screening are expected to load GHC30 to their Glo line and text their name, age, and preferred screening location to 3836.