No parks for colts soccer?
The transformation of many open spaces, school fields and playgrounds into markets, lorry parks and venues for other social gatherings have been identified as the main obstacle to the revival of juvenile football across the country.
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Sometime ago, school fields and other playgrounds within communities served as match venues for colts football but these venues have in recent times made way for residential structures and lorry parks, as well as markets, thereby making it impossible to use them as pitches for colts soccer.
Mr Henry Aryee, chairman of the Greater Accra Regional Juvenile Association, in an interview with the Graphic Sports, said for instance, that Adabraka, a suburb of Accra, had about eight colts teams but only two playing fields namely, the Sahara and the Adabraka Methodist park, were available.
Aside this, he said, the infiltration of some businessmen who knew nothing about colts football had also contributed to the problem.
This, he said, had discouraged the old guards who did not have much resources but love what they did and were able to groom the young ones to mature for the countrys national football teams.
He said the business people, who believed they could use juvenile football to make huge fortunes from the FIFA-organised juvenile competitions, had rather ended up killing colts football in the country.
He debunked the notion that the introduction of football academies system was the cause of the woes of juvenile football.
According to him, the likes of Kotobabi Powerlines, BT International, King Harrison Babies, Great Farcos, among other traditional colts teams in Accra, which used to attract players from all over the country, were no longer vibrant due to the activities of business people and the lack of playing fields.
He said it had become very expensive to run juvenile football like the golden eras of the 1980s and 1990s and called on the Ghana Football Association (GFA) to support and encourage the organisers to bring back colts football.
He suggested that colts teams must be made to play curtain- raisers before Premier League matches, adding that the lack of a regular juvenile football league coupled with the present duration of the senior high school system, had and continued to kill the initiative of more young footballers.
That notwithstanding, Mr Aryee said some colts organisers were not relenting in the face of the numerous challenges and were still organising matches.
He, therefore, appealed to the various Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDA)s to complement the efforts of such people and assist them to rejuvenate juvenile football in the country.
Mr Aryee further called for the modernisation of the registration processes for players at the juvenile level with the use of birth certificates and national identification cards to determine the actual ages of aspiring professional footballers.