16 Communities Battle for SLFA Under-12 Trophy
In its aspiration to enhance talents at tender ages, the Sierra Leone Football Association (SLFA) will be organizing a youth festival involving about 300 kids from 16 communities in the Western Area of Sierra Leone as part of its initiative to commemorate the Day of the African Child.
The festival will take place on Sunday June 15th at the SLFA Football Academy where Waterloo, Calaba Town, Attouga, Trade Center (Kissy), Aberdeen, Parade, Wilberforce, Kingtom, Lumley, Lakka, Kroo Town Road, Fourahbay (Marbella), Regent (SS Camp), Brookfields, Murray Town and Approved School communities will all be taking part.
According to the FIFA Expert to Sierra Leone, Yvon Avry, the programme will comprise of two segments; an individual technical skills contest and a tournament involving 16 communities. He announced that all players, boys and girls, must be born between 2002 and 2004.
“All communities must fill a form to register 12 players and an extra eight in case of contingencies and original birth certificates of all 20 players must be sent to the SLFA Technical Department before closing of business on Friday 13th June,” Mr Avry said.
On the individual skills Contest, five players from each team will participate in the contest but on condition that the team brings a FIFA Grassroots ball that was given to them by SLFA during the festival in that particular community.
“All games are played as 7-aside, including a goalkeeper and are played in 2 halves of seven minutes each, with one minute to change sides while the composition of the teams will be seven players and five substitutes,” the expert explained.
The SLFA Technical Director, John Jebboh Sherrington says the idea is to select the best Under 12 players in the Western Area who would then be given the opportunity to face their regional counterparts after a similar festival would have been conducted in the east, north and southern regions.
“This is the beginning of a new program that will see some of these boys being drafted into a program, where they would be nurtured for future national assignments. We will try our best to ensure that this program becomes an annual national event,” the TD added.
Meanwhile, the draw for the first round grouping of the 16 communities will take place this morning (Thursday June 12) at the SLFA Secretariat in Kingtom.
By Abubakarr Kamara
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