16th October 2009
LONG TERM FUTURE OF GLENTORAN FOOTBALL ACADEMY GHANA SECURED
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Click here to see our child sponsors - Ghana Glens Update (01/04/08)
The board of the Glentoran Community Trust are delighted to announce that the long term future of the Glentoran Football Academy Ghana has been secured.
Over the last ten months and due in the main to the world economic downturn, keeping the Academy alive has been a huge struggle for all those involved on the ground in Sunyani Ghana. At present the girls’ team are being trained by the Ghanaian Post Office Football Association which also has a ladies football team, and the latest financial report received from the staff at the Academy shows a shortfall in finance that even with the best will in the world the Glentoran Community Trust could not make up on its own.
Glentoran Community Trust as you are aware has been taking a lead role in co-ordinating supporters’ efforts to keep the dream alive for the children in Sunyani since 2006.
The Glentoran family are to all intents and purposes the sole sponsors of the Academy.
Glentoran supporters’ generosity has meant that not only have the pupils had a roof over their heads for the past three years but they have also received both playing and training equipment beyond their wildest dreams. Keeping the Academy going has been a hand to mouth existence though with the foundations built on pillars of sand.
However ...
After an enormous amount of work behind the scenes by all the stakeholders in the Academy we can now reveal that uncertainty about its future can be put aside.
The new associates of the Glentoran Football Academy Ghana are the London based Sports Leisure, Marketing and Commercial Company “The Sillsport Group”
Working with Sillsport director Warwick Huntingdon, the Glentoran Community Trust have established a relationship which will ease pressure on the Trust to keep the Academy running whilst at the same time developing the Academy into one which could become the envy of not only the whole of Ghana and beyond.
Linking up with youth organisations across the continent, Sillsport plan to expand the academy to host underprivileged children from further afield, by utilising land donated to the Glentoran Academy by the tribal chiefs.
To cater for this growth, the newly rebranded Sillsport Academy Africa in association with Glentoran Football Club have acquired 15 acres of land provided by the Chiefs and people of Tanoso for an expansion project to construct a club house, allow for two more full size training pitches one natural and one synthetic, with plans now underway to build a state of the art gym for fitness training and classrooms for further education.
The development programme is already under way. The new partnership has hugely exciting potential for Glentoran Football Club and with this in mind Directors of Sillsport and representatives of the Glentoran Community Trust are set to meet in London in early November. Glentoran FC and its supporters will still have a huge role to play in the Academy; however this role will change from one of financial support to one of a more of a hands on nature.
The board of the Glentoran Community Trust are delighted that our fans involvement in the Glentoran Football Academy Ghana has sustained the project long enough for a respected and professional sponsor to take the initiative to the next level whilst still promoting the name of Glentoran across the continent of Africa.
Further details will be announced in November and later at the Annual General Meeting of the Trust when we hope to have a member of the Sillsport team in attendance to brief our membership.
Thank you for your continued support.
The Board of the Glentoran Community Trust
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Check out the new Sillsport Football Academy Africa website at the following link http://www.sillsportacademy.co.uk/
Well Done once again, and Thank You All.
Le Jeu Avant Tout
GCT | 
