Rwanda Football Association (FERWAFA) has confirmed that the Kagame Youth Tournament will start in January 2017 as part of a broader campaign to encourage more children, both boys and girls to play football.

FERWAFA president Vincent Nzamwita said: "We need to start youth tournaments because we want to see more youth playing football and we have talked to all districts to change Umurenge Kagame Cup tourney into the Kagame Youth Tournament for girls and boys.”

According to the organizers, the tournament will attract players born after January 2001. The championship will be played across the country in form of inter-schools. This was decided after the conclusion of ‘Live Your Goal’ campaign last week.

‘Live Your Goals’ is FIFA’s dedicated development campaign aimed at inspiring girls and young women to get involved in soccer and stay in the game.

"We need more competitions for young players, from grassroots, we will have inter-schools. We have mobilised in every district. We want many girls and boys to play football,” Nzamwita added.

The two-month long competition will start at district level before going into the national level from where teams will be selected to represent the country in regional competitions—like the CECAFA U-18 Kagame Youth Cup.

The players will be taught various aspects of football development, and the programme will be targeting over 300 participants in each district between the ages of 6 and 12 years.

FIFA provides support to member associations implementing the campaign of the youth project in order to help in branding, communications, concept development and financial assistance.

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