“I can see a time in the future when clubs like Chelsea will be looking at ASPIRE when searching for new talent,” said the London club’s CEO Peter Kenyon, speaking at a workshop at the international Soccerex in Dubai on Monday.
Sharing a stage with ASPIRE’s Director, General Dr Thomas Flock, and Umberto Gandini, Organizing Director of AC Milan, Kenyon added that “the market place for football talent is now a truly global one” and praised the work of the Doha based Academy for Sports Excellence.
The speakers were introduced as “three of the most important men in world football today” as a packed room listened to them debate the future of academy development at the annual meeting of football business professionals.
While clubs are now regularly paying fees of more than £30 million for player transfers, Dr Flock told the audience how ASPIRE aims to nurture youngsters from childhood by engaging them in physical activities from an early age by creating a system and environment conducive to producing talented competitors long into the future.
He told delegates that ASPIRE is leading the way in youth development in the region and is aiming to develop footballers to benefit the Qatari national team as it strives to make an impact on the global stage.
“We are attempting to develop champions in sport and also champions in life and I believe academies are the future,” he said, stressing the Academy’s unique commitment to a holistic sporting, academic and social education for its students.
“One of our primary goals is to educate Qatari players and produce a national team capable of qualifying for the 2014 World Cup.”
Earlier in the week ASPIRE’s Under 14’s football team held a masterclass in Dubai before playing an exhibition match against the UAE’s national Under 14’s side.
ASPIRE, now in its third academic year, selects and trains the elite of Qatari youth providing them with a sporting and academic education with the aim of turning them into future international champions.
About ASPIRE
ASPIRE, the Academy for Sports Excellence, Doha, was created with the dual aims of identifying and transforming promising student athletes into world renowned champions across a wide range of sports and to act as a beacon to draw sporting culture into the centre of life in Qatar and the surrounding region.
The Academy is distinguished by a philosophy which aims to develop the whole student, providing them with full academic, social and sporting development.
Unrivalled facilities mark the Academy out as one of the world’s foremost sporting and educational institutions, and entice an ever increasing number of visitors from across the spectrum of world sports to use or simply view them. These same facilities will also play host to events during the forthcoming Asian Games 2006.
With one indoor and seven outdoor football pitches, athletics tracks, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, diving pool, combat arenas, gymnastics arena, specially designed weight rooms, lecture halls, dormitories to accommodate what will eventually become 1,000 students, a medical centre and more besides, much beneath the world’s largest purpose built indoor sports dome, every aspect of the development of elite athletes is catered for. ASPIRE is a place for those who dare to dream.
ASPIRE TODAY, INSPIRE TOMORROW
www.aspire.qa
