Dodoma produces East Africa’s best young footballer who flies to Barcelona for trials

ARUSHA: DODOMA has produced the best young soccer player in East Africa, Joseph Godwin who will fly to Spain for extensive football training sessions and trials in Barcelona.

Godwin is a student of the Fountain Gate Sports Academy in Dodoma.

During the East African Chipkizi Cup 2024 tournament played in Arusha, Godwin fielded for his team in the Under-17 category of the competition.

The Director of Future Stars Academy of Arusha, Alfred Itaeli, who organised the Chipkizi Cup, explained that apart from Godwin from Dodoma, there are other 15 soccer players who excelled from the event that will also be going to Spain.

Itaeli explained that the first players from each of the two categories; Under-15 and Under-17 will be participating in different competitions around Spain in the course of 2025.

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The chosen candidates are from Tanzania Mainland, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Zanzibar.

“This year’s tournament was being broadcasted live and more than 30,000 sports agents watched from around the globe and have been selecting their favourite players in the Chipkizi Cup,” said Itaeli.

So far New Hera Interconnection, a sports promoting international entity which was in Arusha for new talent hunting and recruiting, has entered into agreement with Future Stars to take East Africa’s best performing players to Spain.

New Hera has picked the Dodoma student for the proposed Spain sports trial venture, expected to be realised from the first quarter of 2025, as well as the other best Under-15 and Under-17 youth footballers.

The 15th installment of Chipkizi Cup, an annual youth soccer tournament this time involved 330 teams from Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania Mainland and Zanzibar.

Among the 4,000 various African countries, Godwin managed to make outstanding performance and therefore won the title of being the overall best young footballer of the year in the East and Central African region.

“This is a major milestone for the Fountain Gate, Dodoma region and Tanzania,” said FG Academy Chief Executive Officer, Kelvin Shaaban, adding that apart from Godwin, their institution has also added eight other players who will be included in international sports ventures in 2025.

On the other hand, the ‘New Hera Interconnection’, a sports management company that stands at the forefront in shaping the future of African sports by embodying the motto of building sports bridges of opportunities is also around to pick the best talents from the event.

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New Hera Interconnection offers different kinds of sports services and solutions for African athletes, soccer clubs, schools, academies, federations and any sports agent that aims to reach the highest standards in sports development.

During the final match, the Fountain Gate played against the Kafue Celtic Football Club from Zambia beating the youth team from Lusaka 2-1 in the Under-17 boys’ category.