Owner of Ghana Division One league side, Asokwa Deportivo, Aminu Abdulai has rated Colts Football ahead of the much talked about Academy System insisting that the latter is not the remedy to the fallen standards of the domestic leagues.
He has also debunked the assertion that the Academy Football system will help contribute quality players to the various local football clubs thereby enhancing standards in the domestic leagues.
Known in the footballing circles as Camarat, Abdulai who also runs a colts football setup says the primary focus of the Football Academies is to nurture talents and prepare them for foreign deals and not purposely for local football clubs.
Camarat made the assertion while helping to dissect the fallen standards of juvenile football in the country and its ripple effects on the local leagues during a radio show on Kumasi-based Silver 98.3 FM.
”If we want to make our domestic league successful we cannot rely on these club academies although they develop talents…..this is because the aim of most Club academies in developing young talents is to land a foreign contract for these players at tender age and not to sell locally to either Kotoko or Hearts of Oak ….these players spend most of their career as foreign professionals (sic),” Camarat told Silver FM.
”Not all of the Club Academy in Ghana help our domestic league to be successful because most of their targets is to land mouth watering offers from foreign clubs …..this is not so with juvenile (colts) clubs where players spend a lot of playing time to proof their worth at the club before attracting contracts.
”And so the only benefit we gain from these players is at the national level when they are given call-ups to serve but the domestic leagues do not benefit from them”.
Camarat is credited with helping to unearth talents who have gone on to become national stars. Prominent among them is Inter Milan’s Kwadwo Asamoah. He has made the bold claim that players who pass through the Colts Football System often come out as better than the academy players.
According to him, this is because of the detailed and rigorous training modules colts football players go through, thereby giving them an edge over Academy players.
”When we talk of the level of training that colts players endure, the academy players do not come near,” he stressed.
The debate about Colts Football and Academy Football is an age-long one following Ghana’s inability to make strides in juvenile football in recent past.
After wowing the world at various FIFA Under-Age tournaments in the early 1990’s, Ghana’s U-17 side have been pale shadows of themselves, while the U-20 have ghosted off the scene after conquering Africa and the rest of the world in 2009.
Camarat’s claims are likely to stoke more fire and trigger further discussions on various media platforms and enter into streetside debates and arguments.
