The Barbados Soccer Academy (BSA) Under-19 team has been accepted to participate in the 2024 Disney Boys Showcase, December 27-30 in Kissimmee, Florida. The Disney Showcase is one of the biggest college and professional recruiting events in the USA, featuring thousands of prospects from close to 200 clubs.
The BSA team will be captained by Keiron Haynes, Under-18 national record holder in the 400 metres, who is also captain of the Lodge School Under-19 in this year’s Barbados Secondary School League (BSSL) competition. His vice-captain will be Ajanie Payne, who captained the St Leonard’s Boys School in the 2023 BSSL tournament.
BSA members are very passionate about soccer and their course of study and they are excited about this upcoming event.
The Academy’s primary objective with this trip is to position its members to expose their soccer talents and capabilities to the scores of university and college coaches who will be attending these events in Disney, in order to secure academic and soccer scholarships, or even professional contracts.
These athletes are predominantly young persons who are currently enrolled in secondary and tertiary institutions, and experience has shown that these forms of international initiatives help them perform at a superior level in athletics while also maximising their academic potential.
Since its establishment, the BSA has provided 46 soccer and academic scholarships. Members have become student-athletes at more than 15 institutions in the USA. Youngsters have attended professional tryouts at various levels in the USA and the UK.
The Empire Building and Construction BSA youth team won the Summersal competition that was played at Melbourne grounds in St James in September. In addition, the team played unbeaten in the recently held Barbados Football Association (BFA) Under-17 competition, winning nine games and drawing once.
Founded in 2004, the BSA is a well-established Academy, with a distinctive history, committed to having one of the best youth programmes in the country. The organisation’s goal is to expose youth to the “best of all worlds” on the soccer field and in the classroom.
Members are accepted from the age of four years and over. The BSA consists of teams in the age categories of Under-6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, and 21, that participated in the 2024 BFA Premier League and the Prime Minister’s Cup competition.
The success of the Academy suggests that parents may be moving away from the traditional old club system that focuses only on sports, clearly demonstrating that parental choice is the variable with players’ success in securing academic and soccer scholarships.
One of the BSA’s strategic goals is to secure 20 scholarships per annum over the next five years, as part of its ongoing mission to empower Barbados’ youngsters towards becoming global citizens. The organisation subscribes to the notion that investing in focused, devoted, and talented young adults can and will yield both quantitative and immeasurable benefits in the short, medium, and long term.
(PR)
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