The partnership is to give the kids an added edge.
Mpumalanga School of Excellence (MSE), a football academy in Mbombela, has entered into a partnership with Forek Institute of Technology to offer bursaries to aspiring footballers.
Forek Institute of Technology is a private college that offers various artisanship and apprenticeship courses such as electrical engineering, welding, plumbing, bookkeeping, financial management and many more other courses.
It is situated in kaBokweni… Mbombela.
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The partnership is to give the young footballers the opportunity to take other courses while also training to be professional footballers.
“In case they cannot become professional players, they have valuable skills to make a living. It is a win-win situation,” Forek Institute of Technology chairman Fortune Sibiya said.
He said that the Forek Institute of Technology aims to assist as many youngsters as possible from South Africa and beyond the borders of the country to gain work skills.
“We have already initiated a number of Corporate Social Investment (CSI) projects in the community of KaBokweni where we are situated. This partnership will enable us to touch more lives from different parts of the province and the country at large,” he said.
MSE director Sizwe Yende said that the partnership would stimulate the academy’s growth as it is “essentially a sponsorship offered by Forek Institute of Technology”.
“We are very excited to have Forek on board. The benefits of this partnership for Mpumalanga School of Excellence (MSE) are multi-pronged in that the football academy will now be able to offer services to players above 18 years old and not in a mainstream school, to boost our longstanding vision to produce educated footballers and keep youngsters focused on educational development and also give us more time to work with players a little longer.
Players develop differently. Some are good and ready when they are 16 while others are slow and late bloomers, and are ready to play at a higher level when they are 19 or 20,” said Yende.
“The impact of this partnership in the socio-economic status of these youngsters is going to be very huge in the future. In the US, tertiary institutions offer these kinds of opportunities to develop athletes. We are very grateful to Forek for choosing us as a partner to pursue this noble course,” he said.
MSE is a non-profit company that trains and develops young players from the age of nine with the aim of producing future professional footballers, coaches and other football-related professionals.
The football academy used to register players from 14 to 18-year-old but with its partnership with Forek, the age has been increased to 21 years in order to accommodate players who have finished high school and still have an ambition to develop and break into the professional and semi-professional ranks in soccer and also have valuable skills.
Boys who are 14 years old and above and have passed Grade 9 and want to branch into vocational training are also welcome to apply.
They can contact Mpumalanga School of Excellence (MSE) on 079 528 9902/078 591 9895/065 924 0300 or visit www.mpschoolofexcellence.co.za.
They can also contact Forek on 060 728 6757 or visit their website on www.forekinstitute.co.za for more information.
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