After months of intense scouting in the SAB regional league that fields over 30 000 players and the highly competitive Varsity football tournament, the Castle Lager football academy scouts, have named the 45 (semi-finalists) players who could be part of the exclusive academy camp.
The camp for the 3rd Season will take place from 16 January 2015 to the 2nd of February. The camp will field a final squad of 23 for the training sessions at the Wits University’s education campus in Parktown, Johannesburg.

The main objective of the Castle Lager Football Academy is to discover young talented players with the potential to be fast-tracked and be signed by Premier Soccer League and the National First Division (NFD and PSL) teams, and could in the future  represent South Africa in the Senior Men’s team (Bafana Bafana).

The 45 players will be taken through intense three days of trials by Bafana Bafana legends Neil Tovey and Phil Masinga with the hope of making the 23 players who will be selected to continue with the camp till the 2nd of February.

The 23 who make the cut, will then play friendly matches with PSL and NFD teams. The players will once again be looking to catch the eye of coaches and scouts from the PSL and NFD clubs.

Tovey is pleased with the players the scouts have identified. “We have talented players in the country, and the scouts did a great job. It was not an easy decision to make as we had a pool of talented players who have a bright football career ahead of them”, he said.

The Castle Lager Football Academy, was launched in 2012 as a partnership between Castle Lager and the South African Football Association (SAFA), and has proved to steadily be reaping the rewards, with four players, Siphiwe Mtsweni, Rafique de Goede, Chase Peterson and Deolin Mekoa being signed by PSL teams, Kaizer Chiefs, Vasco da Gama. SuperSport United and Maritzburg United respectively.

The January camp will also provide the under/23 national team coaches with a chance to scout for players, as they are in the process of putting together a team that will compete at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“Castle Lager remains a firm, committed and longstanding supporter of our three national teams. The Castle Lager Academy is part of our sponsorship strategy that aims to not only lend support to our current national teams but also ensure we have a solid pipeline for ensuring that Bafana Bafana gets the benefit of our best soccer talent in the country,” said Shawn Katz, Marketing Communications Manager: Castle Lager.