Popular English Premier League (EPL) club, Southampton Football Club, recently unveiled Saints Lagos Academy with the aim of tapping into the stream of untapped talents available in Lagos, and Nigeria at large.
Saints Lagos Academy is an extension and an affiliate of the English Premier League’s club modelled on Southampton’s football club academy in England. Also, the football academy is a partnership with Crimson Sport Limited, which is located at the Goal Centre facility in Lekki, Lagos.
The academy will cater for both male and female players between the ages of 6 to 14 years with the aim of creating platforms to enhance the development of grassroots football in Nigeria.
Students will be trained based on the methodology, expertise and technical know-how of Southampton –a club reputed for grassroots sports development and famous for developing football stars like of Gareth Bale, Theo Walcott and Oxlade Chamberlain, among others.
At a press conference announcing the birth of the academy, Ashiwe Anthony, project coordinator, Saints Lagos Academy, said the academy will focus on developing sports in the grassroots, stating that it is an area where football experts here in Nigeria are not looking at.
“We just want to contribute our own quarter in ensuring that football in Nigeria goes from strength to strength and we are looking at the grassroots level. Our mission and vision is one centred on discovering the plethora of talents that are awashed in Nigeria.
“It is our job to discover them, our vision is to ensure that no talent out there will go to waste, they will be discovered and nurtured. We all know in Nigeria there is a plethora of naturally gifted and technical footballers. It is our job, across the length and breadth of this country to ensure that we at Saints Lagos Football Academy discover the next generation of football stars that would grace the world’s biggest stadiums and the world’s biggest competition and we will spare no efforts to ensure that we’re at heart of football development,” Anthony said.
Further speaking scouting for players and affordability, Anthony said there are professional football coaches that will take care of scouting, and added since the goal of Saints Lagos is centred on grassroots, it would be made affordable and accessible to on weekdays and weekends depending on a player’s choice.
Providing details on the project, the global development manager, Southampton Football Club, Matthew Sanger, it would go beyond sports development to include education to ensure the players were equipped all-round to contribute to the world in positive ways.
Sanger also restated that the academy would adopt the same curriculum used to train players in its flagship camp in England.
“One of the things we are going to share with Saints Lagos is our academy performance plan, which is based on technical, tactical, psychological and physical development of the player, so we will share and collaborate with Saints Lagos to deliver a world-class training programme here in the city of Lagos and educate the players and coaches as well,” he said.
Also addressing journalists at the press conference, Tosin Osunkoya, director, Goal Centre, said though football is very lucrative and estimated at billions of Dollars, Africa largely untapped.
According him, this is because “a lot of us have failed to perform certain responsibilities that are expected of us.”
“But what I see happening in the next decade is Africa is going to be the destination for everybody all over the world to tap into young talented Minds. So for us at Goal Center, we felt that it was important for us to pitch our tent across the value chain in sporting activities.
“The resources that we garnered over the years myself and my partners we felt that we could create a platform for young, talented minds to express themselves and that’s why we’ve gone ahead to build this best-in-class world-class facility –Goal Centre,” he said.
The director, School Sports Directorate, Lagos State Sports Commission, Oluyomi Oluwasanmi, lauded the project, stating that it aligned with the focal points of the present administration of Lagos State.
“This is a laudable project geared towards youths engagement, discovery of talents and nurturing them to stardom. We are happy because the project is in Lagos and Lagos is Nigeria and also because the state government’s focal point is grassroot developmental program. We pray and hope that whatever is in our power, we’ll do to support this project to make sure it thrives,” she said.
Anthony Nlebem & Desmond Okon
