South Africa 2010:Economic Blessing

With the FIFA Soccer World Cup in South Africa only two years away, more opportunities are opening up as international companies and role players start focusing on the region.

One such initiative is the German International Football Academy which is an international sport and academic exchange programme run by Bernd Wulffen.The company recently opened an office in Cape Town, with the aim of starting a soccer academy, while they also aim to recruit talented boys and girls to play professionally abroad or to study in the United States.

Wulffen recently visited Namibia with the aim of building up contacts amongst the footballing community and to sound out the possibilities of organising similar academies, training camps and exchange programmes in Namibia.

"We are based in Washington, and we promote football exchange programmes in the United States, Germany and Canada.

We run football academies in the United States where we identify talented players and organise them trials with clubs in Germany.

We also work in partnership with some of the leading universities in the United States, who offer scholarships for talented male and female soccer players," he said.

They have similar programmes for girls who do field hockey by organising them trials with top German hockey clubs and American Universities.

With the World Cup coming to South Africa, Wulffen thought it would be appropriate to open an office with the aim of starting an academy there.

"We have opened an office in Cape Town and are now busy contacting schools to try and identify talented players with the aim of starting a soccer academy.

I want to build up contacts with the Namibian soccer community so that we can organise football clinics and exchange programmes for talented youngsters here," he said.

"We work with top German clubs like Hamburger SV, Fortuna Duesseldorf, MSV Duisburg and the Blackburn Rovers in England, and have sent talented youngsters for trials to these clubs.

But it's not easy and not many make the grade.

We test the players thoroughly before we send them because we need to make sure that they are mentally strong and have the right characters," he added.

PLANS TO EXPAND SCHOOL EXCHANGES Wulffen, who is an A licence coach, plans to further expand his exchange programme by bringing German youths to South Africa and possibly Namibia, as part of their school exchange programme.

Wulffen left Germany for the United States in 1986 where he coached various teams before opening a soccer school.

He started organising soccer camps, while he also organised trials for promising United States players at German clubs.Later on he started working with leading United States universities like Harvard, George Washington University, Boston College and St.

John's Univeristy New York to organise scholarships for promising young soccer players.

Today his exchange programme has expanded to Canada and Germany while they regularly hold youth soccer academies at leading venues like the LTU Arena in Duesseldorf.