OVER 30 young players from Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Democratic Republic of Congo, have been selected to fly to Spain for trials after excelling in the just ended East African Chipkiz Cup of Arusha.
The talented youth will be serving several Spanish football clubs if they excel in the trials.
The 28 young soccer players are those who displayed remarkable skills during the just ended East Africa Youth Soccer Tourney, the Chipkiz Cup 2022 held in Arusha.
During the annual tournament, agents from Spain, including the National Spanish League (LaLiga) and Spanish Football Institute (FSI), jetted into Tanzania to scout for new talents from East Africa.
The FSI Director Pablo Verdejo affirmed that their presence in Tanzania, attending Chipkizi Cup, was to mainly recruit new players who will be taken on special sponsorship deal after trials.
Among the recruits were six players from Azam, Five from Fountain Gate of Dodoma, 4 players from Eclat FC from DR Congo, 3 players from the Future Stars Academy of Arusha, 3 players from Saint Soccer of Kenya, 2 players from Amarigo of Uganda and 2 players from JKU of Zanzibar.
Others are 2 players from the PE Academy from Zimbabwe and one player from Idea Sports of Arusha.
More than 300 teams from across the globe, with over 4,000 personalities are currently painting Arusha with soccer balls as the annual football event captures the city.
Alfred Itaeli who is the Director of Future Stars Academy (FSA), which organises the East African Youth Soccer Tourney, admits that there are many agents from various clubs, including Spain that came to identify potential young footballers.
“For the first time we managed to get qualified girls soccer players, they were recruited from Fountain Gate Academy,” he added.
He added that, there will be talks between international soccer agents and local football academies to hatch a way forward in transforming their future into sports.
“We had 302 teams, with over 4,300 players from various corners of the continent,” he said, adding that they encourage other countries to bring teams for the annual tourneys.
As for the agents, they admitted that they have had good experience and that the Chipkizi Cup was a proper platform to discover new talents, according to Daniel Hidalgo from Spanish Football Institute (SFI).
