It’s just six days to the prestigious AMAPRO Football Championship with plans revealed on path to glory for the best young players and emerging stars.
Taking place from July 1st to 7th, 2024, the AMAPRO Football Championship will see 16 teams featuring some of the world’s best emerging talent and future legends take to the pitch in Kwara State Stadium, Ilorin.
The brain behind AMAPRO, Shogo Shodunnke spoke on the plans for this year’s tournament.
“AMAPRO started in 2016 as a community project with 4 teams and from there to 6, 8, 12 teams. Now, we're having 16 teams in AMAPRO. We always have approximately 34 teams who are willing to play the tournament but we go for 16 teams every season.
“It's a platform for young guys to become professionals, also, there is always a difficulty in transiting from the grassroots to the professional level.
"We felt that there needs to bridge the gap for the grassroot players to become professionals within a short time. And that's how we came up with AMAPRO.
“We brought in the professional players in the NPFL, NNL and NLO to form a team, trying to strike a balance between the professional players and amateurs, using them to motivate the grassroot players.” Shogo said.
Shodunnke, who is an alumnus of FIFA International University Network, CIES, also highlighted the growth of AMAPRO in the past few years.
“We've been able to achieve a lot of results. In less than 8 years, we've been able to produce 165 professional players from the grassroots, with some playing abroad and others playing in the Nigerian leagues.
“AMAPRO has gone beyond Nigeria. We've seen a lot of opportunities, being invited to Europe.
"Tibu Africa invited AMAPRO to Egypt based on our achievements. The concept is to assist the helpless and hopeless through football and to create a lot of breadwinners. If you have 10 footballers playing professionally abroad, the impact within the community will be felt. It's not about us alone but about the generation to come."
He also revealed the inclusion of a foreign team in this year’s tournament and also partnerships in place.
“We can see a lot of projects like Championship in Europe, Viareggio 74th Edition, Gothia Cup in Sweden and more. We have to start small and grow big and that's what we're trying to do.
"I hope this year, we're going to add a lot of clubs into it. We've gotten clubs from Benin Republic and Ghana. Also, a lot of agents are willing to come.
“We've signed partnerships with a lot of performance analysis companies abroad. It's just to see how we can diversify and spice things up, and bring a lot of people into it to help.
“Initially, we were doing it locally, bringing coaches from within and few agents to see what we were doing. Now, it's big. Close to about 10 agents are coming and have partnered with about 13 clubs who will be watching the Championship live via streaming platforms.
"Also, we've gotten a big brand coming in. This year is going to be big because we're encouraging people to have a well structured football academy and clubs and also to bring in a lot of talented players.
“This is nothing that has to do with relationships or trying to help people based on who you are or where you're coming from. If you have the skills, talent and are ready, AMAPRO is ready to give you the platform to shine.
“I believe this year's edition will be one of the best. We just want your support, collaborations; open to opportunities, partnerships and relationships.” Shogo said.
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