National Stadium, Lagos is the venue for the selection
The trials for the MTN Football Scholar Season 3, will reach the climax this week, as international coaches from the United States and Canada will storm the National Stadium, Lagos between Thursday, June 6 and Monday, June 10, for the selection of potential finalists into the first academy of the edition.
The trials have taken place nationwide in the cities of Port Harcourt, Enugu, Abuja, Benin, Akure and Lagos. At least 100 young talented footballers with good academic capabilities were picked from all these centres, for a final screening into the academy.
The visiting foreign coaches will reinforce the idea of the project, by preparing the participants in both academic works and football strategy for the MTN Scholarship. After the screening, the students will sit for a mock SAT exams where they will be pruned down to 30, based on the best results from the mock exams.
Last year’s event witnessed a team of American academy coaches from US universities, during which the visiting coaches reiterated the importance of education in football development. This year’s event is expected, not to only discover new football talents but also to further promote the initiative’s emphasis on the role of mental alertness in the development of soccer skills and talents.
The visiting international coaches will take the selected students into thorough football training sessions, while a team of academics will further screen them for their academic capabilities.
The qualified 30 students, from the final selections will proceed to the Academy, where they will receive training on football and lessons for the SAT exams, simultaneously.
The students will take part in qualifying matches which the foreign coaches will have an opportunity to watch them play and proceed to select final students.
The students will play against those from established football academies, thereby giving the coaches a wider pool of students to pull from. Selected students, at this stage, will proceed into academy 2, to prepare them for final SAT examinations.
MTN Football Scholar is a soccer camp that focuses equally on football and academics. It provides a platform for Nigeria’s best student athletes/soccer players that are academically sound, to earn scholarships to US universities. It is a scholarship that connects MTN to the positive aspirations of Nigerian youths, for international exposure, in soccer and education.
The initiative that started in 2011 produced four successful students, from the season 1, who are currently in various American Universities while seven young men from the season 2 which include, Shadrach Ekeh from A-Z International School Mafoluku, Lagos, Oyeniyi Adebare from International Sports Academy, Waasimi, Ogun State and Kehinde Sanni from Apex Unique International College Akure, Ondo State, will be leaving this September to Universities in the US and Canada.
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