Mon, 19 Jun 2017 09:45:38 +0000
By MICHAEL MIYOBA
PREPARATIONS for the Gothia Cup in Sweden and the Paris World Cup Youth Games in France are progressing well, says Lusaka Youth Soccer Academy Chairman Leenus Kaputa
Kaputa said the academy was geared to competently represent Zambia at the two European outings.
In an interview with Daily Nation Sports in Lusaka, Kaputa however noted that the academy faced a number of challenges due to lack of enough funding.
He said insufficient funding had contributed to the academy making drastic measures on the number of youths to travel to Europe for the games.
“Preparations for next month’s youth championships in Europe are progressing steadily. The players are in good shape to representing the country at the two tournaments we will participate in,
“We are just having a few challenges due to lack of enough funds. As you know our major stakeholders are the parents and this time around things have been hard due to the tough economy. We couldn’t receive enough funds from our stakeholders, a situation which has forced us to travel to Europe with a few players.
Kaputa said the academy had many talented youths who would have travelled to Europe but because of the challenges at hand, only a limited number of players would participate in the tournaments.
Kaputa said that it would not be easy for the academy to emulate its last year’s performance at the two tournaments predicting that the competitions at this year’s editions would be tough.
“Last year we played in two finals and came back with two trophies. We are hopeful of recording the same results as last year but it will be difficult because the tournaments will be tough this year,
“Our focus though is on developing the talents of our players and the trip to Europe will give them the required exposure for the development of their talents,” he said.
