Grassroot Football is all about the young aspiring football players who want to have fun while learning the basic skills & techniques of football. It must be simple, exciting and rewarding for all the children invovled. Most children like to play football with their collegues either in school or in their community. Along with other elements of grassroot football is the togetherness it offers. Learning the skills & techniques of football means there has to be a knowledgable teacher/coach hence the formation of a properly managed football academy.
Football Academy, like a school, is the place where young aspiring football players go to learn the skills & techniques, including life values, that will enables them play the game the right way.
What is the basis of our football academies in Nigeria? Some youth football academies are formed just to meet the financial & personal gains of the founders who lack the knowledge and the knack of how a proper football academy is set up whilst a few has set out their objectives on the vision of meeting the needs of the youths.
In the past year, during my visits to various so-called football academies, I manage to see a number of football academies falling short of the philosophy of grassroot football as mentioned above. It is fair to mention that a football academy, to some people, is a place you can just gather a few youths and make them run around with a ball for about 2hrs and thats it- job done!, i feel this is a crude way to run a football academy.
Nigeria is blessed with a lot of sporting youths -especially in football- yet the infrastructure is something to be frowned at, in Lagos alone there are at least 53 registered football academies with others not willing to register or can't be bothered.
Setting up a football academy is nothing short of a business model where one need to look at all factors to make it succeed. To help anyone thinking of setting up a proper and legal football academy, i have included this link as a reference http://www.sportacsventures.com/7-things-for-setting-up-a-football-academy. Hope this is helpful.
In my next post, i will be looking at the dangers in the work of the unregistered football academies and the agents.
I might have mentioned somethings that you feel are not true, yes we are all humans. Please make your comments or observations in the space provided by this site
