Rwanda will no longer have room for foreign players in the next few years after the long-awaited football academy went operational over the weekend.

The academy will start with 25 players, all under the age of 15 years, who on top of football will continue their academics at Ape Rugunga courtesy of the Ministry of Sports and Culture.

The world football body, Fifa will disburse $ 400,000 as part of the Goal Project III to develop the academy’s technical side for the duration of three years.

At the official opening ceremony on Sunday, the local football federation (Ferwafa) boss Brig. Gen. Jean Bosco Kazura said that the start of the academy will bring an end to the common dependence on foreign players in the national teams as well as individual clubs.

"The objective of this academy is to produce players for the Africa U-17 Youth Championship 2011 which will be held in here (Rwanda).

"And as time passes, we will be having plenty of our own players, something that will enable us to stop depending on foreigner either in the national team or the local clubs,” Kazura said, adding that the academy project is a gradual process which concerns all Rwandans.

Foreign players have dominated the Rwandan league and many have won Amavubi Stars caps, a feat that can be mainly blamed on the lack of youth development.

Since the historical qualification for the 2004 Africa Cup of Nations against all odds, the Amavubi Stars have not been the same and at one time, President Paul Kagame never dithered to express his frustration with the whole national team system.

Fans have in the past criticized the foreign players on the national team for a perceived lack of fighting spirit.

The Amavubi that qualified for CAN Tunis 2004 had several foreigners on it like Rafael Manamana, Bernard Mukoko, Ramadhan Nkunzingoma, Fritz Emeran Nkusi, Saidi Abedi to mention just a few but at least they were performing.

Five years later, more foreigners are being adopted and incorporated into the team yet Rwanda makes no improvement in international competitions.

The Amavubi Stars has finished bottom and second from bottom in their groups for the both the 2006 and 2008 Nations’ Cup qualifiers.

And for the 2010 World Cup and African Nations Cup qualifying campaign, Rwanda is tied on one point with Algeria, Zambia and Egypt in Group C.

Ferwafa has in recent years promised to reduce the number of foreigners not only in the national league but also on the national team.

But such promises have yielded nothing as the national continues to adopt foreigners, among them in the current team; Mbuyu Twite (Eric Gasana), Labama Bokota, Patrick Mafisango, Saidi Abedi, Peke Yake, Boubakary Saddou to mention a few.

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