Barely some 6 days to the start of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, Qatar’s ever-waited dream of hosting men’s biggest football festival is set to be fulfilled.
Qatar, having dreamed of achieving that feat, their planning began two decades ago, in 2000.
To commence their planing, the Head of State of Qatar, by decree, in 2004 established the Aspire Academy, with branches in other countries to scout for young players and train them.
They hired world class coaches and administrators and built modern sports complexes for this purpose.
They also instituted a lenient policy on naturalization of athletes in particular, to help them attract talented youngsters from other countries.
Finally, in 2010, their vision of hosting the World Cup was attained.
The project of establishing the Aspire Academy to scout players has also borne fruit as 18 of their final 26 players for the World Cup, representing (70%), are all graduates of the academy.
According to Head of Sports of Accra-based Angel FM/TV, Saddick Adams, among the players, one of them is a Ghanaian who schooled at TI Amass in Kumasi.
To take a clue from the well-planned initiative taken by Qatar, the award winning journalist noted that “there’s nothing a country and its people cannot achieve with visionary leadership.”
