Upper West Team A has won the Zone 3 Airtel Rising Stars competition on home grounds over the weekend after going past Brong-Ahafo at the Wa All Stars Stadium to seal qualification to the national finals of the competition.

The feat was made possible through inspiration from their young diminutive striker, Aaron Kyiwie popularly called “Messi” by his colleagues

The 14-year-old Aaron Kyiwie, who was voted by the technical committee as the overall best male player of the tournament helped his team by scoring three goals and displaying quality football, speed, pace and good sense of judgment when he is  on the ball throughout the competition.

 Upper West team A  picked up six (6) points from three games to win the championship while Brong-Ahafo team B took home the silver medal with Upper West team B winning the bronze medal.

In the girls division, Upper West Region whipped their Brong-Ahafo counterparts by three unanswered goals with Issahaku Bilkisu, the overall best female player displaying great goalkeeping skills to save the day for her side to win the game.

The Northern Zonal Business Manager at Airtel Ghana, Mr. Kwame Osafo Amoah was impressed with the standard of football displayed by the teams and urged the champions to continue with necessary preparations for the national finals. He reiterated “the time is now to show your potential as a player be a striker, a defender or whichever position you play for your team”.

The finals of the this year’s Airtel Rising Stars competition which will coincidentally be staged in Sunyani will be the first time Brong-Ahafo has failed to secure qualification to the finals.

The Airtel Rising Stars competition will to move to Tamale after Wa, which will feature teams from the Upper East and Northern Regions. The train heads down to Denu in the Volta Region for the zone 4 competition between the Volta and Greater Accra Regions.

 Airtel Rising Stars is Africa’s biggest grassroots soccer development initiative intended to ‘unleash the power of potential’ in Ghanaian youth by discovering and nurturing talented under 17 years male and female footballers who otherwise would have gone unnoticed and untapped.