FootSolidaire Sierra Leone has on 19th April 2022 kicks start a U-17 trial for players within ages (16-17) years at the SS Camp playing field in Freetown.
According to Alphajor Bah the Project Coordinator, the trials are purely staged by the FootSolidaire Sierra Leone football organization with the aim of young players to expose their careers in the field of Football.
He noted that (20) teams are going to take part in the tournament and the (20) teams four players are going to be selected from the teams.
He added that they are going to be a group in one team and later they are going to get a final squad.
He affirmed that the format of the competition is going to be home and away from basic and during the second rounds there are going to be a knock stage, and then the quarter-final and semi-final, and finals stages.
“Our Aim of staging this tournament is that we want it to be an annual event where we can get players that will excel in European countries because the other Countries like Guinea, Senegal, and Ivory Coast have been benefiting from such programs and that is why their players are many in European countries, we also want our grassroots players to get such chances,”mr Bah explained.
He added that after getting the final squad they will have to take them to Cape Verde Island and organized a mini-tournament where scouts from European clubs will see them choose the set of players they want.
In return, they will contact their parent club for professional contacts to and they will be working percent.
There is going to be a Yoppa trophy in the three weeks trials and the winner will go home with a trophy the runners-up will be given a certificate of participation and they plan to extend the next Editions to the provinces so that it will attract the entire country.
“A total of forty teams have contacted me, as they expressed their readiness to be part of the tournament, but because of limited resources we cannot take all teams, but if we get more funds we will accommodate teams in the next edition”, Mr Bah stated.
According to Amadu Bello Koroma the head coach of Legend Football club, this has been our cry for a long time we have not been having such trials for our local grassroots players, but I want to thank the organizers for such trials as it will help the young boys to gain the advantage and improve in their development.
“calling my team to these trials means a lot to us as a club, we have aimed to get such an opportunity to part take in such a tournament, and am sure my team will progress far”,
Alie Janneh the head coach of (Me and my Boys) football club.
