My name is Abdul Hayye Yartey, President of Cheetah Football Club and a soccer scout.
I love scouting so I travel through the length and breadth of Ghana, from the north to the south to scout for talented young players.
In the process I come across very young talented players who are handicap in terms of boots and other equipment. Some of these players play barefooted, others with canvasses and improper football boots.
Most of these players play for juvenile and grass root football clubs who are unable to provide them with boots. The nature of the pitches that most of these footballers play on also does not help at all as most of the venues used at the grass root level are pitches with worn-out grasses (Sakora parks). You can buy a good boot and after playing 2-3 times on the pitch, the boot wears out.
And we know football boots are one of the basic equipment every young footballer needs over a long period to be able to develop his talent. I have heard and seen players not training with the excuse that “ï don’t have boots”.
In Ghana it is quite expensive to get a very good boot for young kids and even if you get to buy, how many can you patronize for the player to play with for a month or two. Looking at the situation, sometimes I just go out of my way to help players with boots. But how many can I even buy to support the numerous talents we have in Ghana that are in need of boots.
I sat down and I thought about coming up with an initiative to be able to provide football boots and football equipment’s for teams at the grass root level who are really in need. And so I decided to speak to some of my players and contacts in Europe to come to my aid to help me raise about 1000 boots for less privileged young talented players and clubs who are losing their talents because of lack of boots to play with.
Also, clubs at that level are unable to develop these young talents very well as they lack the needed equipment i.e. footballs, hurdles, cones, makers etc. You get to the grass root level and you will see about 40 kids in a team playing with utmost three footballs and on barefoot.
Hence I have decided to speak to some of my players in the likes of Christian Atsu, Kwesi Sibo, Alhassan Wakaso, Emmanuel Toku, Mohammed Iddriss, Kwasi Sibo, Ernest Ohemeng, Ishmael Yartey etc. that if through football they have been able to get to the top, I think it’s about time they also give back to society by helping me to provide boots and equipment to these less privileged players and clubs.
However, I don’t want to limit it to only players who had played for Cheetah FC, it can be a player, an agent, soccer scout, a football club, organization, individual, etc from Ghana, Ivory Coast, England, Portugal, Spain etc who will actually be touched by this initiative I am undertaking to also support me.
We know there are a lot of clubs and players in developed countries like Germany, Italy, France, England, Denmark, Holland etc that do away with boots after using them for a short period. All we are saying is that, please don’t trash those boots but contact us and make it available to us, we will package them and ship them to Ghana or even if you can ship them to us in Ghana.
When I discussed this project with Christian Atsu, he told me that he has a lot of boots that he is willing to ship down for Cheetah FC. If Cheetah FC is going to benefit from this gesture from Atsu, I believe there are other people out there who can also donate some boots and equipment for players and clubs at the grass root level in Ghana to also benefit from them.
We believe there are clubs out there who have equipment that are not in use anymore, please donate those equipment to us and we will make it available for clubs at the grass root level in Ghana here which will go a long way to help develop players at that level.
Please donate your new/used boots to help polish and bring out the golden talents of these young players
THANK YOU
ABDUL -HAYYE YARTEY
PRESIDENT
CHEETAH FOOTBALL CLUB
CONTACT
PHONE: 00233-278-227777
EMAIL: bootstoghanacfc@yahoo.com
FACEBOOK: Donate Boots To Ghana Cheetah FC
INSTAGRAM bootstoghanacfc
Source: Thepressradio.com/Ghana/Dickson Boadi