Kurt Edwin Simeon-Okraku, President of the Ghana Football Association, has announced that the first-ever football academy to be owned by the Ghana Football Association will be based in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region.
President Simeon-Okraku made the announcement on Friday, June 23, 2023, during the commissioning of the first phase of the FIFA Forward 1.0 Kurt Okraku Winkogo Technical Centre.
“Hon. Minister, overlord of the Talensi Traditional area, I am also very happy to announce on this platform that your region/community will be the first and foremost beneficiary of what will be, the GFA Football Academy. The Ghana Football Association in conjunction with the Bolgatanga Senior High School (Big Boss) would soon announce a partnership and the establishment of the first ever Ghana Football Association Secondary school project called the FA Football Academy. So I am very happy to say that the first ever football academy to be owned by the Football Association will be based here on your soil’’ President Simeon-Okraku said.
‘’We will combine education and football right here on this soil”
President Simeon-Okraku was very optimistic that the Upper East region has the potential to produce a lot more super talents and perhaps a lot more of Abedi Ayew Pele if the right level of support is given to the youth.
“It is very true that there is a shortage of first-class football infrastructure in this part of our country. Just by way of statistics, we have seen one club qualify from Division Two to Division One and what that means is that, in the Upper East Region, we have one first-Division club, and 24-second Division clubs. There are 21 Third Division clubs, Seven Women’s Division One League club and most importantly, in this part of our country, we have 84 Juvenile clubs”.
He stated that the above mentioned football clubs deserve first-class football infrastructure to develop players.
‘’It is the only way as a country we can develop a lot more sports talents to represent our country at various levels of the football ecosystem” he ended.
