Jayapura Regent Mathius Awoitauw launched the Sentani Soccer Academy

regent of Jayapura, Papua Province Mathius Awoitauw officially launched the Sentani Soccer Academy or SSA at the Barnabas Youwe Stadium, Sentani, Sunday.

Regent Mathius in Sentani, Sunday, said the launch of the Sentani Soccer Academy was a very good tool in developing the talents and abilities of young children and young people in the region going forward.

"The launch of SSA is also in line with the local government's program that encourages child-friendly Jayapura Regency, one of which is through the world of sports," he said.

According to Mathius, the launch of SSA was the struggle of all the Football Schools (SSB) in the area so that his party would facilitate the legal process and the Barnabas Youwe Stadium would become SSA's home base.

"If there is an academy, it means that there must be a hostel for the children to live in. Apart from that, it is a school for studying so that everything is centralized and organized but also in a professional manner, which we will prepare later," he said.

He explained that his party hopes that the launch of SSA can raise the enthusiasm of young people and coaches in developing player talent.

"We are optimistic that in the future SSA can produce the best soccer players for the Land of Papua and can appear in all competitions to represent Papua," he said again.

He added that with the existence of an academy, athlete development will enter the semi-professional stage so that his party will coordinate with various parties to support SSA going forward.

"We have communicated with Bank Papua and PT Freeport Indonesia for cooperation. Apart from that, we will also communicate with the business world in the future," he said again.

Meanwhile, Deputy Chairperson of the Jayapura Regency PSSI Regency Association (Askab) Greq Virgilius Diah Yoku said that SSA was established as an umbrella for all SSBs in the region.

According to Greq, the aim of establishing SSA is to help players when they want to play in professional and amateur football clubs.

"We learn from experience because when the kids have trained and played in amateur and professional football clubs they just leave," he said.

Thus, he said, if the academy is managed properly, there will be feedback in the form of a budget which can then assist players and coaches in preparing SSB on an ongoing basis.

"In the future we hope that through this SSA we can form an academy team as well as a professional team," he said.

Currently there are 16 SSB in Sentani, Jayapura Regency and a total of 200 students where each SSB has 30 to 40 students and 16 of these SSB are currently members of the Sentani Soccer Academy.

SOURCE : https://papua.antaranews.com/berita/695009/bupati-jayapura-mathius-awoitauw-luncurkan-sentani-soccer-academy