MP for Tamale South and Minority leader in parliament, Haruna Iddrisu, has made known his plans to start a football academy in the Tamale Metropolitan district of Ghana.

The MP who has been investing in football for about almost a decade or slightly more, believes there are enormous untapped talents who deserve the chance to unearth them.

“Why am I into football? There is enormous potential of young people with skills and brilliance in football. They need exposure, they need an opportunity and a platform to showcase the skill and talents.”

As part of his plans to push talents in the region, Iddrisu is currently the president of Division One side, Steadfast FC and they currently lie, 2nd on the zone 3 Division One league table.

The MP has decided to further his quest in talent unearthing and development by launching his own academy in the region. He believes football has become more than a sport and countries with amazing talents, have a profitable resource.

“It has even now become an exportable product or service. It has even now become an exportable product or service. Eventually I’ll develop a football academy in partnership with some international and local players.”

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The MP described the franchise as one which can be “money gushing just like the politics” and is of the view that the government needs to take an active role in rebranding and making the sport more economically viable.

“It is distressing financially, when you look at the amounts you pump into it. There are no immediate returns.
You’ll hardly get anything in return for 4/5 years. I have advised that what Ghana needs to do is to pass a legislation that targets corporate social responsibility to fund sports. Let’s have a legal framework that corporate social entities will make a contribution to support the development of football to support the development and identification of talents in football. Support our football teams, whether national or premier division, but adopt them within the pursuit of their corporate social responsibility. That is ethical and feeds money for those purposes. I am a strong advocate of this and we’ll see how we push it further.”

He also reiterated the need to keep politics out of football as it one of the many factors impeding its development in the country.

”We have to rebrand our football and take partisanship out of it. For instance, find merit in randy abbey regardless of his politics. If you find merit in Kojo Frimpong as a sports enthusiast, forget of his politics and make the best use of his skill and talent. I think that in Ghana, we just bury our opportunities with our excessive partisanship. Football should not ever be a partisan activity or considered on those lines.”