ASPIRE, the Qatar-based Academy for Sports Excellence, has awarded a scholarship to a young goalkeeper from Cameroon, providing him with a unique opportunity to develop his natural potential and forge a future career as footballer of the highest standard.
Antoine Messi, aged 12, was offered the chance to develop his talent with local elite athletes, and others from around the world, as part of ASPIRE’s scholarship program, which provides gifted student athletes from developing countries with the enviable chance to benefit from ASPIRE’s comprehensive sporting, academic and social learning environment.
Antoine, who first started playing football aged just five, before joining Cameroon’s Ecole de Football EDING at the age of seven, impressed coaches and staff at ASPIRE with his abundant natural ability between the posts, commitment and ambition.
Michael Browne, Head Football Coach, ASPIRE, said: “Antoine is a great addition to the ASPIRE community and has all the attributes a goalkeeper needs; he’s big, strong, brave and naturally agile. He is still young and a raw talent, but the coaches here are looking forward to helping him develop to his full potential.
“He is settling in very well and we look forward to nurturing his skills and observing his development over the years.”
Antoine, who is studying and training in Qatar with the full backing of his family, hopes to emulate the success of his famous countrymen Samuel Eto’o, reigning African Player of the Year and a leading light with the Cameroon national side (nicknamed The Indomitable Lions) and current Espanyol and national team goalkeeper, Idriss Carlos Kameni, considered one of the best in Spain’s La Liga.
ASPIRE’s scholarship program is designed for exceptionally talented youngsters from developing countries in a bid to hone their skills and turn them into athletes – at the highest levels of elite sport - by providing them with opportunities they may not have at home.
Scholarships are granted on the basis of natural talent, aptitude and motivational preparedness.
The addition of overseas students also help the Qatari athletes in their social development by allowing them to interact with different nationalities and cultures, as well as helping to raise the overall competitive levels within team sports like soccer.
As well as offering world-class coaching and training to their athletes, the Academy provides a full academic programme to support the students’ education.
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
