A total of 24 players have been selected to take part in the final stage of the scholarship programme of FOSLA Academy holding on April 18.
The players were picked at the end of the recent 2015 FOSLA Under-13 football competition in Abuja.
The players are: Ebibe Asika, Shina Kamate, Kyauta Gift – Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC); Nathaniel Otomberi, Abdulmajid Suleiman, Ramalan Yusuf (Abaji), Wisdom Daniel, David Moses – Bwari; Oseni Suleiman, Gideon Goodlad, Amos Sunday – Gwagwalada; Bashir Mohammed, Nanas Abdullahi, Ibrahim Yahaya (Karshi), Haruna Solomon, Onyeka Chukwu, Isaac Nuhu, Sadiq Ishaku, and Emmanuel Okorie – Kuje.
Meanwhile, Kuje Area Council has emerged as the new champions of the 2015 FOSLA football competition.
The Kuje boys defeated the Karshi boys 2-1. Their two goals were scored in the first half of the game, while Karshi scored its consolation goal in the second half.
Kuje had earlier dethroned the 2014 champions, Abuja Municipal, in the semifinals, after whitewashing Abaji 3-0. Karshi eliminated Gwagwalada and Kwali by a lone goal each.
Speaking at the occasion, the Chairman of FCT Football Association, Musa Talle, frowned at the continual report of Nigerian players failing the MRI test at U-17 tournaments, saying that the national team coaches should beam their searchlight on FOSLA Academy to pick the players with the right ages for the tournaments.
He said: “It is always very annoying whenever you hear that some of our U-17 players failed the MRI test before any major tournament. It is just because we have refused to do the right thing.
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) test is used to estimate the actual age of a person.
“I want to challenge the coaches of the National U-17 teams to come over to FOSLA Academy to pick players of verifiable ages.
“At FOSLA, we have over 70 players who can fit into any of the junior national teams. I want to task Coach Emmanuel Amunike to come over to the school now and pick the players that would make the country proud at the FIFA U-17 World Cup later in the year in Chile,” he said.
Talle is a member of the youth development committee of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).
