Cape United Soccer School of Excellence now officially opened

May 27, 2009 - PRLog -- The African continent has become known in recent years for being a hotbed of undiscovered football talent. Football is ‘the sport of the townships’, an escape from poverty, and thus, an African boy’s number one ambition.


Our Soccer School of Excellence officially opens today and will have a minimum intake of 30 fifteen and sixteen year-old boys annually. We have spent the past few months scouting the Western Cape and are now in the process of extending our scouting contacts throughout the country and further a field into Africa. The school opens with 18 local boys, 1 boy from Port Elizabeth and one boy from England.

Cape United will develop these boys, preparing them ultimately with the aim to play in Europe. Our intense two-year residential course focuses on football ability and education, as well as teaching necessary life skills required for a career in the game. They will be under the expertise of a top team of coaches and staff with an array of football experience. The team includes one of the world’s first UEFA PRO-licensed coaches, a Cape Town hero who achieved the dream and made it to the top of English football, and a 1966 World Cup Winner. Not least, there are years of experience between them in placing talent at professional clubs.

In addition to our teaching and residential facilities here at Struben House we have secured the nearby Wynberg Military base sports facilities on a Lease which started in June 2008. The facility consists of 3 excellent floodlit football pitches, floodlit tennis courts, swimming pool, large sports hall with changing rooms, fitness suite, canteen, offices and large meeting room.  

We will be educating ‘in house’ with our own specifically developed curriculum to enable each boy to attain his individual potential and develop life and citizenship skills whilst also training twice daily. The aim is to train to a standard that would enable the student to earn a living as a professional footballer in Europe. Those boys that don’t make the grade should be good enough to remain in Professional African Soccer. The school will operate over 51 weeks of the year and from 2010 will feature an annual European tour giving the boys valuable experience of European competition. The tour will also serve as a ‘shop window’ for European Clubs to view the schools students.


Funding

Funding for the Soccer School of Excellence has been raised almost entirely from current and ex-English Premier League players, one of them being our Ambassador Ian Wright MBE. All of them share a desire to give something back to the game by way of sponsoring boys for their two year stay at the school and giving the boys an opportunity of a lifetime. Each of these players will mentor the boys and will take an active role in their ongoing development. We are already planning to bring them all down to Cape Town at the end of the English Premier League season to help- with coaching and specific skills development. Mart Poom, the former Estonia, Sunderland and Arsenal goalkeeper will be running some goalkeeping clinics for us in June as we are still looking for goalkeepers for the School.


Cape United Soccer School of Excellence in the Community

Although we are a commercial business with our core product being the boys at the residential school we intend to be very active in the community. We are already operating under 13, under 15, under 17 and under 19 squads, made up entirely from boys from the Western Cape. These boys are training three times a week under the supervision of excellent coaches and we expect many of the younger boys to graduate to the residential school at the age of 15.

We already have excellent relationships with the 105 year old DeBeers Football Club out at Strand and are developing good working relationships in Paarl and the local townships here in Cape Town.  We intend to operate regular ‘soccer clinics’ in the townships under the cape United banner and hope to work closely with Ambassadors in Sport. We have a schools programme that we hope to launch later in the year.

For all commercial enquiries please contact  Shaun Ascough Director of Africa Soccer Developments
Web : www.AfricaSoccerDevelopments.com
Email: shaun@africasoccerdevelopments.com
Tel: (or if calling from outside of South Africa 0027 )

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Africa Soccer Developments is dedicated to developing the next generation of young professional footballers. Our services include the sourcing, development and placement of new talent from countries within the African Sub Continent.

Africa Soccer Developments recognizes the potential that new foot-balling emerging economies like the African sub continent can play in providing a cost effective and realistic source of both new raw talent and the means to properly train, educate and develop that talent to the highest level.

Our first African Soccer School of Excellence was opened by our Ambassador, Ian Wright MBE in Cape Town in 2009.

For all commercial enquiries please contact Shaun Ascough, Director of Africa Soccer Developments

Web : www.AfricaSoccerDevelopments.com
Email: shaun@africasoccerdevelopments.com
Tel: or if calling from outside of South Africa 0027