NAIROBI, June 7 (Xinhua) -- A former Kenyan national soccer team coach on Wednesday called on the East African nation to set up football academies around the country to nurture talent.
Bob Oyugi, who played for Harambee Stars as a defender and later on coached the national team, said academies nurture and innovate footballers by offering them a wide range of activities that tend to mold them into better players.
"Players are not made. They are born and nurtured through innovative abilities that include academic and life skills training because academies are centers of excellence," Oyugi told Xinhua on Wednesday.
He said Kenyan footballers are very athletic but their playing abilities are curtailed by their inability to sharpen expertise that can only be acquired in centers of excellence.
The East African nation can hardly be termed as a football giant in the East African region, which also lags behind the rest of Africa in football achievement and last won a regional trophy in 2002 when the hosts beat Tanzania 3-2 during the Council of East and Central Africa Football Association (CECAFA) Senior Challenge Cup.
Oyugi, who hang his boots in 1992 at the age of 29, founded Edu Sports Academy based in Nairobi in 1998; a project that has seen a number of footballers get scholarships for higher studies in the US.
The academy also develops both academic and athletic talents of young men and women by offering study and athletic scholarships.
"I started the program in conjunction with some universities in 26 states and many football stars have benefited from the curriculum since inception," he noted.
The tactician said football cannot be developed solely by tournaments and leagues, adding that as a player who passed through a football academy, he stands at a high pedestal to ascertain what he is articulating.
