A former President of Nigeria Football Federation, Sani Lulu Abdullahi has revealed that the dream of FOSLA Academy has started evolving, and that the task ahead is still enormous.
Lulu who spoke at the weekend, while formally receiving the 2014 FCT SWAN Academy of Year won by his Academy, said that the project of FOSLA Academy is a ‘work in progress’ which is tailored towards ensuring that the country has a pool of talented players of various age limit that can be readily available for the country at every point in time “let me first and foremost thank the FCT Chapter of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) for recognizing the FOSLA Academy as one of the best in FCT, and even the country. The idea behind the academy started earlier before 2010, where we decided to pool resources together to ensure that talented young players with verifiable ages are giving the opportunity to pursue their careers in football and also get the highest level of education. We recruit these players right from the primary schools, and most of them are on the Academy’s scholarship, and some others are fee paying students. The school now runs from JSS 1 to SS1. The implication is that we have players who are from the ages of 11 to 16 years. Many of them are ripe for any of the junior national teams. So far, they have player over 40 matches from 2011 to date without losing any and are ready to move ahead to ensure that they make the country proud in future”. Continuing, the former FCT Director of Sports said “the job is a continuous one, and we would need to give back to the society in our little ways. The task of developing Nigeria football is an all embracing one, and every genuine stakeholder should be involved in it to the fullest. The country is bigger than anyone of us, and we must contribute to developing it wherever we found ourselves”. He thank the FCT SWAN for the recognition, and promise that the Academy would not lose focus, but would remain committed to the development of football at the grassroot level in the country.
FOSLA Academy which was voted the FCT Best Academy of 2014 is based in Karshi, Abuja and has over 70 student players from JSS 1 to SS1.
