This year’s Betway Talent Search has successfully ended in Tamale. The event, which is the first of its kind in the Northern Region, took place at the sports oval of Northern School of Business (Nobisco) on Saturday.
The wonderful initiative of Betway to comb around the nook and cranny of the country started last year across the country. But this year, the talent search began in Tamale as the first venue for the Northern Sector.
Similar exercises will be held in Sunyani and Kumasi where the selected players from the Northern sector will gather for the next stage of the selection.
Out of the over five hundred potential players who had picked up forms to take part in the exercise, about three hundred and thirty-six turned up to register at the close of registration at 7:00am on Saturday morning.
These numbers of players were taken through a series of selection drills by the team of technical gurus such as former Black Stars captain Stephen Appiah, who is the official ambassador of Betway Talent Search. Others included Black Stars assistant coach, Maxwell Konadu, former Black Stars player Mohammed Gargo among others.
At the end of the last session which featured an eleven aside matches of fifteen minutes each half, the participants were commended by the technical team for their professionalism. However, the lists of selected players were not revealed, with the coaches promising to contact the players individually.
Speaking to Diamond Sports on our Sports Avenue program which was hosted live from the Nobisco Park, the Country Manager in charge of marketing at Betway, Kwabena Oppong Nkrumah indicated the company’s resolve to develop talents in the ‘passion’ of the nation which is football. He said, this was just the beginning and further initiatives will be rolled out in future. He added that, “Betway started sponsoring a single Ghana Premier League team in Ashantigold, but now the sponsorship has been expanded to include other clubs such as Aduana Stars, Medeama SC and Liberty Professionals. By this, he meant that the idea of the talent search stands to be expanded in future.
The media liaison officer at Betway Ghana, Fred Nii reiterated the company’s resolve to continue to unearth talents to propel football development in Ghana.
The Betway Talent Search ambassador, Stephen Appiah in an interview with Diamond Sports said it was a herculean task to sieve through the numerous number of players who turned up for the exercise and said the coaches had to look deeply into the array of stars available. He also thanked the organizers Betway for the opportunity given to him to help motivate the future stars.
Some participating players, Nurudeen Wemah of Tamale City Football Club and Simba Sylvester of Tamale Utrecht Football Academy who reached the final selection round thanked Beyway for the opportunity. Nurudeen Wemah particularly was happy to have been motivated by the likes of Stephen Appiah, Maxwell Konadu and Mohammed Gargo. For his part, Simba Sylvester said the lack of football activity in the country at the moment meant they were almost redundant but the opportunity presented to them by Betway has actually been a valuable one.
On display at the venue were catchy phrases such as, “Every Legend started from Somewhere”, “Greatness exists in Tamale” and “Greatness exists in Ghana” to further motivate players who turned up for the exercise.
