Rwanda: PSG Academy - a Solid Foundation for Rwandan Football to Thrive

By Edmund Okai Gyimah

As football continues to grow all over the world with clubs across the globe hunting for the next biggest star to groom, foreign teams are extending their tentacles to the African continent to form partnerships with local academies.

Others have bought huge percentages in teams and became bankrollers, some have over the years also established academies on the continent as preparatory grounds to nurture talent and ship them into their main teams in Europe.

The Dutch were the masters in this business as their teams such as Ajax Amsterdam and Feyenoord Rotterdam made great strides on the African continent.

The former became majority shareholders of Cape Town FC, took control of their youth system and changed the name of the club to Ajax Cape town.

They also formed a partnership with Ghanaian club Ashanti Gold FC on June 18, 1999 and renamed the club's Academy as "Ashanti Gold Ajax Academy." The results of these academies proved beneficial to Ghana and South Africa respectively as those were the place players like Benedict McCarthy, John Mensah, Mubarak Wakaso and others were nurtured.

The French later followed suit having realized the huge talents on the African continent in 1993, their former national team player Jean Marc Guillou who was working for ASEC founded the ASEC Mimosa Football Academy.

This academy scouted and groomed youth such as Yaya Toure, Kolo Toure, Bonaventure Kalou, Salomon Kalou, Emmanuel Eboue, and a lot of others who were the mainstay of the squad which qualified the Ivory Coast to the world cup for the first time in 2006 and also won the AFCON in 2015.

Ghanaian Academy 'Right to Dream' which is owned by former Manchester United chief scout for West Africa, Tom Vernon was also in affiliation with Manchester City for more than a decade until the owner bought Danish club FC Nordsjaelland and decided to ship his products to graduate from the Academy there.

This article originally appeared in The New Times.

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