FOLLOWING Amavubi’s bright start to the 2023 AFCON qualifying campaign which has seen the team pick a point in two crunch away games, the country’s football ruling body Ferwafa is leaving no stone unturned as they seek to maintain the momentum by bringing in players born abroad to solidify the team. It is not just Rwanda which is courting players born in Europe of African descent, countries like Ghana, Cameroon have been on a charm offensive in European capitals to woo players to beef up their national teams. In relation to Rwanda, the country’s glory days were in 2004 when the likes of Olivier Karekezi, Jimmy Gatete, Jean Lomami, Eric Nshimiyimana qualified the nation to the AFCON in Tunisia but the gospel truth is that the country does not boast of such quality homegrown talents again and is about time foreign born players are brought in to form a balance. Rwanda has many players who were born in Belgium, France and other European countries and they can certainly mixed up with the other players to form a winning team. Luca Steppe with Ferwafa Secretary General Herni Muhire. |Photo: Courtesy Ferwafa Secretary General Henry Muhire was in Europe last year to scout for players of Rwandan origin and so far, some of them have switched nationality. They include; 22-year-old Abdoul Kelly who features for Rupel Boom FC, Luca Steppe who is 18 years and plays for KSV Ninove in the Belgian third league and Daryl Nganji Nkulikiyimana who is 17 and plays for Football Club Verbroedering has been done. These are young players who can be the mainstay in Amavubi for at least the next one and half decades. Muhire stated upon unveiling the three new players that they are bent on getting all Rwandan players born abroad after the initiative was launched by Ferwafa boss Olivier Mugabo. “The program was launched by Ferwafa President in order to bring together all Rwandan football talents around the world for the future of the national team.” Muhire stressed. “Last year I had a Europe tour to find those young Rwandan football talents. I didn’t find most of them because they were in school and others in their teams. Now we are happy to welcome these young talented footballers in the country and to talk to them about their future and what they think of the national team.” There are other players also in the fray such as Sven Kalisa who plays in Luxembourg. Other youngsters who could also be approached by Ferwafa are Irvin Lomami of Olympique Lyon, Noam Emeran of Manchester United, George Lewis Ishimwe of Arsenal, Trey Itangishaka and Jonathan Nsanzimana. With the good initiative FERWAFA has started, the future looks bright and if majority of the players are brought in, it won’t be long for the Amavubi to rub shoulders with the best on the continent Going by history, Senegal’s triumphant 2002 world cup campaign ultimately opened up an avenue for African countries to see the usefulness of bringing in players born in the diaspora. It was rare to see African countries falling on their natives to beef up their national teams prior to 2002 but the scenario however changed as Senegal roped in three players who were born in France including Habib Beye to their squad as they reached the quarter finals of the World cup in Japan and South Korea. Ghana also followed suit both in 2006 and 2010 with the likes of Kevin-Prince Boateng, Quincy Owusu-Abeyie, Hans Adu-Sarpei and a host of others playing pivotal roles as the four-time African champions reached the second round and quarter finals respectively in those tournaments. Other countries such as Algeria and Morocco are also benefiting immensely from this project of roping in their natives who were born in the diaspora into their national teams. Over the few years, countries like Equatorial Guinea have also had success through this scheme as in the last ten years, they have qualified for the AFCON thrice and each time, they go past the group stages. 90 percent of the players they used were born abroad. In this year’s AFCON, Gambia and Comoros Island who were making their debut secured qualification using a large percentage of players born abroad and they went ahead to reach the next round. These are countries who could have never qualified for the AFCON if they had maintained only home grown players. It is an indisputable fact that players who were born in the diaspora, especially Europe, are unique. They have good basics in the game as well as training facilities which helps them to develop well as compared to locally grown talents. Currently, more countries are blending homegrown talents with those players who were born abroad and it is looking good. Just over a week ago, as many as six Ghanaian players who were born abroad completed their nationality switch and they will beef up the Black Stars team ahead of the world cup in Qatar.
