Congratulations are very much in order as Nova Pioneer and TTA graduate from the class of 2021, Peter Kolenyo, this week, committed to join Cardinal Stritch University on a 67% soccer scholarship.
Peter made the decision after receiving offers and interest from various universities including Amherst University, Manor College, Irvine Valley, Whatcom University, Pima College and others.
Cardinal Stritch is one of the most consistent NAIA Men’s soccer programs in the United States, having qualified for the NAIA National Tournament in 4 out of the past 6 years.
Peter is a graduate of the True Talents of Africa Football Academy residential program at Nova Pioneer Boys where he excelled not only on the field but also off the field, scoring high marks in his KCSE Exams in 2021.
We are extremely proud of him and we wish him well in his journey! He is set to travel to the US in August and is currently training with the TTA Football Academy’s Under 21 team.
Peter joins the list of Nova TTA Graduates headed to the US this August on Soccer scholarships which includes Cedric Mucui, Kennedy Obanda and Derrick Onyango.
Congratulations are very much in order as Nova Pioneer graduate and TTA Member from the class of 2022, Derrick Onyango, this week, committed to join Cardinal Stritch University on a 69% soccer scholarship through TTA’s Special SRUSA Program.
Derrick made the decision after receiving offers and interest from Hastings University, Milligan University, St. Scholastica, Indiana Wesleyan, University of Rio Grande, etc. with soccer scholarship offers worth over 60,000 US Dollars per year. Cardinal Stritch is one of the most consistent NAIA Men’s soccer programs in the United States, having qualified for the NAIA National Tournament in 4 out of the past 6 years.
Derrick is a 2022 graduate of the True Talents of Africa Football Academy at Nova Pioneer Boys where he excelled not only on the field but also off the field, scoring high marks in his KCSE Exams and was inducted into TTA’s SRUSA program.
We are extremely proud of him and we wish him well in his journey! He is set to travel to the US in August and is currently training with the TTA Football Academy’s Under 21 team.
Derrick joins a list of 3 other Nova TTA Graduates headed to the US this August on Soccer scholarships which includes Cedric Mucui, Kennedy Obanda and Peter Kolenyo.
Hands down, FOOTBALL is Africa’s most popular sport.
There is no day that goes by without us talking about Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, and all the big clubs we love to watch. But this passion, this deep and relentless passion for football, is mostly carried by our youth.
Young boys (and girls) all over Africa strive to be professional footballers. It’s no surprise then that in pursuit of this dream, many of them join football academies to develop and grow their talent to reach the highest level.
In layman terms, a football academy is a ‘Football School’.
A talent development centre which focuses on football and its goal is to train and teach young players to maximize their talent and one day make it as professional players.
Most football academies tend to promise the same thing;
“Train with us and you could play professionally abroad for your favorite club.”
However, in saying this, when you look at the number of African players who make it at the highest level, why are they so few?
How many academies actually address why?
What are they not telling us, as players and parents, about the real world of professional football?
Here are 3 things your academy has probably never told you that you must know as a player or parent in your pursuit of football as a career:
Banned International transfer of youth players
Did you know that since 2009, FIFA Prohibits the transfer of players under the age of 18 internationally?
Despite this, hundreds of academies in Africa send students to international tournaments every year. It’s not that playing in these tournaments is wrong or bad, it’s that academies don’t tell their students and their families that your son/daughter is not likely to be signed. And when the player comes back wondering why they were not picked up by a club, nobody has answers. The truth is that clubs cannot sign underage international players. So go on trips and play in tournaments, that’s all fine… but find another route if you want to play abroad under the age of 18.
Limits on International Players
Another thing, players often don’t know is that every league has limits on foreign players. They do this to protect their home-grown talent. In Spain for example, each team is only allowed 3 Non-European Union players on match day. In France, that number is 5.
Even in Kenya, each club is only allowed 5 foreign players.
This means that the competition for those spots is very high. To play abroad as a foreign player, you would have to be world-class.
How hard it is at the professional level
Most players will not go from Nairobi, or Kampala, or Accra directly to playing for Arsenal. Football and even life doesn’t work like that. You don’t land your dream job after you finish high-school. Football is a ladder. And many families simply lack the patience to support their son/daughter through that ladder.
We have this conception that if you take your son/daughter to London, they will immediately be signed. But that’s impossible.
What’s more likely is that your son or daughter will play in different countries as they climb the ladder of international football. They may not even get a professional contract on their first trial, or even their second or third one. But the same applies to any highly competitive job. You might work different jobs and go to many different interviews before you get what you really want. And that’s okay. Expect football to be the same way.
. . . . .
This blog is written and created by True Talents of Africa. The TTA Football Academy program is a specialized highly intensive football program designed to turn students from ‘students’, to ‘student-athletes’. The program enables talented football players to pursue football at an elite level without subtracting from their education whilst granting them greater opportunities to play internationally.
Sports Recruiting USA
FC Malaga City (Spain)
Brooke House College (UK)
Soccer Viza (Costa Rica)
FA Euro (USA)
Our Academy Partners
If you would like more info on playing opportunities for yourself or your son, you can join our next Masterclass.
Several years ago, I remember staying with my aunt and uncle in Kansas City, Missouri USA. At the time, I was working as a youth coach whilst playing at the U23 level in the USL 2 (formerly known as the PDL). The season had just ended. Earlier that year I had also competed in my final college season with the University of Rio Grande where we were crowned NAIA National Champions.
That summer was a crucial time for me because I was preparing for some prospective trials at different teams. It was a time of a lot of uncertainty and anxiety because of all the questions I had over the next step in my career. For 3 or 4 months, I was not signed by any team. It was tough.
During that time, I learnt something about professional football.
It’s Nothing like you think it is…
Every young boy has a dream of playing in the biggest leagues internationally. But as we say in Nairobi “kwa ground, vitu ni different” (On the ground, things are different).
I’m not sure where I heard this but I was once told that in the world of Professional football, there are three kinds of footballers:
The top 1% – These are the Messis, the Ronaldos, the Neymars… that live a life most of us can’t even imagine. They are at the pinnacle of the sport.
Then there is the 30% – These are the professional players that play in high level leagues across the world and live a comfortable lifestyle.
And then there is the other 70%… who nobody ever talks about – these are the professionals/semi-professionals who live contract to contract, constantly uncertain of their future and for the most part struggling to support themselves with their football.
I have been part of the 70% and I will tell you from experience… it’s not for everyone. When I was living in Kansas City, I worked out 6 times a week. sometimes twice a day. I was in the gym in the mornings, I would go coach, and then train at night with different teams. The reason I wanted to share this experience with people is because they think that the journey they’re on is hard… but they have no idea just how hard it is.
What you should do now
At True Talents of Africa, we put most of our athletes on a holiday workout program for the next few weeks as the COVID-19 Pandemic subsides (we pray). The workouts are 4 times a week and are designed to focus on football actions to improve their explosiveness and technical ability. It hurts me to say that most of our students aren’t even committed enough to complete their workouts.
The reason it hurts me is because I remember being like them—having a dream I knew nothing about. They want to play in the biggest leagues in the world but they don’t want to commit themselves to getting better every day. It saddens me.
So, I write this for any aspiring footballer, and athlete. I want you to know that it’s what you do in the dark when nobody is around that will determine what you do under the lights when everybody is watching.
90% of anything worth doing is boring and monotonous and tiresome, but that’s exactly why it’s so hard to do, because few people are willing to make that sacrifice. You don’t suddenly become professional at anything; you are a professional every day until you become one.
When I was only 7 years old, my biggest dream—the be all and end all of my entire life—was to play professional football for Arsenal Football Club in London, England.
At the time, I was just a naïve little boy with big dreams. In my family’s living room in Nairobi, Kenya we would watch the likes of Dennis Bergkamp, Robert Pires and Patrick Viera – they were our superheroes.
No lie, Thierry Henry was my ‘black Jesus’—my idol ( I would even walk like him when I played).
As I grew older, my fervent love for football only intensified. I joined different academies here in Kenya played for my school teams… and I was talented too. I won various awards and to this day my room in my parents’ home is filled with medals and trophies.
A Young Kimathi Kaumbutho
But… Unfortunately, then—and even now—nobody tells young footballers in Africa and Kenya about the realities of trying to play football internationally. Every Academy promises the same thing; that after playing for them you will travel far away, play in a trial in a foreign country in Europe and all your dreams will come true.
That fairytale journey happens for very few in this world. and if you don’t believe that only 1% of footballers make it pro, name me any Kenyan, or East African that has ever played for Arsenal, Chelsea, Man United… It just doesn’t happen. The problem is when parents and players are not told why.
To this day, many football academies in Nairobi, Kenya, Africa, sell a dream that is merely a fantasy to get kids and parents to enroll in their programs. Sometimes, the academies themselves don’t know the truth. Other times, the prospect of earning money from parents/players is more important. I just want to tell people the truth… it hurts much more when you realize the truth too late.
Kimathi Kaumbutho (Pictured Left)
Since my humble days as a footballer in Nairobi, I have been lucky (I prefer to say blessed) enough to have seen the world because of football. I’ve played in 4 different countries, and I played in the United States for 8 years where I played at all levels of the game. We won a National Championship in 2015 at the college level, I played semi professionally for 4 years, had professional opportunities… In 2016 I was voted in the best 11 in the southern region of the United States at U23 level. I don’t say this to brag… instead, I’m saying this because people can talk about the challenges of playing professional football, but it’s different when you’ve actually lived through them.
In 2016, I was supposed to attend pre-season with a Finnish first division club (in the Veikkausliiga). Weeks before my travel they said they couldn’t take another international player. I have had trials with clubs in various leagues including the MLS, where it felt the only barrier was my passport and country of origin. There are so many barriers to entry in the global professional game and it makes you realize that the world of professional football is not sunshine and roses. It’s grey and confusing. But nobody tells you that growing up—especially as an African. So, let me be the first.
Why is playing internationally so hard?
I’ll start by informing you that when it comes to playing professional football internationally, there are many obstacles for “foreign players”.
Every elite football league, even the Kenyan premier league has limits on how many ‘foreign’ players a team can have at any one time. Because of this, if you’re a ‘foreign’ player in the country where you’re trying to play professionally, it is so much harder.
But, why do the limits of foreign players exist?
Because playing professionally is a job and every country has immigration policies that guard against foreign workers coming to take ‘their peoples’ jobs. It’s that simple.
Let’s talk about the English Premier League, because everybody wants to play there. To play football professionally in the UK, you need a work permit. To get a work permit as a Non-EU player (a player outside of the European Union, i.e. an African), the FA, English football’s governing body, states that you must have a certain number of games played for your national team in the past 1 or 2 years. For a country that is outside the top 50 of the FIFA rankings like Kenya, you need to have played 75% of national team games in the past 2 years, or—if you’re under 21—75% in the past 1 year. This is rarely the case for many young Kenyan players who aspire to play in the UK… hence why it’s so hard.
But let’s say that you do have the national team caps and are eligible for a work permit, why would an English club forgo every player in the UK—then every player in the entire EU—then every other talented player in the world and pick you from a little known footballing country like Kenya… you’d have to be pretty special.
I’m not saying this to discourage anyone… but you need to know.
Now these rules that determine the movement of players internationally differ by country and are complex. For example, in the MLS, each team is only allowed 8 international players, in the Spanish La Liga, only three non-EU players can be included in any match-day squad.
You should also consider that FIFA bans the international transfers of players under the age of 18 unless their parents have emigrated for reasons not connected to football.
These things make playing internationally for Africans, and particularly Kenyans very hard.
So what do we do now?
People forget just how big the football world is. I’ll give you my personal advice. You are not going to go from playing in any club in Kenya to playing in Europe. If you are a young player in an academy here, you need to get yourself an ‘in between’ opportunity. A place where you will get the exposure and the elite training. Joining an international academy which offers education as well as football is best.
Going on trials with professional academies if you’re under the age of 18 is pointless. Of course, some clubs do sign players under 18 and give them ‘host’ families, but that is also illegal and for a club to go to such lengths, you’d have to be better than anything they have seen. Which is unlikely.
You can also play in the US. Many international players play in America, because it is one of the few countries that fuses elite football (soccer) and education. To give you context, my roommate when I played in the USA had played for the Man United youth team until U14… he came to America for more opportunities. “if you don’t make it in Europe by 16, you’re done…” That’s what they’ll tell you. So many talented players pursue other opportunities.
At True Talents of Africa, we partner with FA Euro (US), SRUSA (in the UK) and FC Malaga City (Spain), to give talented players real opportunities. Not sell them hopeless dreams. If you want to know more Click HERE. If you want to attend one of our Elite camps and trial for any of these opportunities, APPLY HERE.
This blog post is brought to you by True Talents of Africa – Africa’s greatest Sports Opportunity provider. Written by Kimathi Kaumbutho, TTA Football Academy Director and Author of ‘To Chase a Dream in Nairobi’ (to purchase, click here)
References
Brief, I. (n.d.). Footballer work permits. Retrieved from In Brief: https://www.inbrief.co.uk/football-law/footballer-work-permits/
Homewood, B. (2016). Reuters. Retrieved from Fifa faces lawsuit over rules banning transfer of minors: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-soccer-fifa-transfers/fifa-faces-lawsuit-over-rules-banning-transfer-of-minors-idUSKBN13J14P
