Airtel Ghana says it is proud of Priscilla Okyere, the captain of Ghana’s Under-17 female football team, the Black Maidens for leading the team to defeat their Uruguayan counterparts 5-0 at the ongoing FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup Tournament in Azerbaijan. Priscilla was the best female player of the recently ended Airtel Rising Stars youth football program in Ghana, from where she was discovered and called for the national assignment. She scored twice in the 24th and 78th minutes in the lopsided game to give the Black Maidens a chance to progress to the knock-out stages of the competition, whiles the Uruguayan counterparts heads home. Head of Corporate Communications and External Affairs of Airtel Ghana, Donald Gwira said in a statement “Airtel Ghana is proud to have contributed to the development of Priscilla and we are indeed not surprised at her exploits in Azerbaijan”. According to Mr. Gwira, Priscilla Okyere was one of the revelations of the Airtel Rising Stars programme and she emerged one of the best players who took part in the first soccer clinic held in South Africa last year. “She also emerged the best player in the 2012 edition and missed the soccer clinic organized with coaches from Arsenal FC because she had to join her team mates for camping leading up to the World Cup”, he added. Airtel Rising Stars is a sports talent initiative introduced by Airtel in 2011 to discover and nurture talented under 17 years male and female footballers who otherwise would have gone unnoticed and untapped. The initiative runs in all Airtel operations across Africa and seeks to bring to light the skills of these young and talented ones by giving them the platform to become world class football stars. Two players from the 2012 edition have been selected for the national U-17 male team, the Black Starlets.