McDonald’s U14 Schools League grows in leaps and bounds
JOBURG – McDonald's U14 Schools League is said to be growing in leaps and bounds.
The McDonald’s U14 Schools League, which is in its eighth year as a legacy project of the 2010 Fifa World Cup, is growing in leaps and bounds as it has seen more registrations this year than all the previous years of the tournament.
This was revealed by McDonald’s South Africa’s chief marketing officer, Daniel Padiachy. He singled out some of the best talent currently setting the Premier Soccer League’s Absa Premiership ablaze who have come through the legacy project. This included the likes of Bidvest Wits’ wonder kid, Phakamani Mahlambi and teammate Sibongakonke Mbatha, both of whom represented South Africa at the Confederation of African Football (Caf) U20 African Cup of Nations (Afcon) in Zambia.
“The time of the tournament is actually the most exciting for us at McDonald’s as we get to know and introduce some of the country’s best upcoming raw talent that the country has to offer in football,” Padiachy said.
Padiachy also mentioned the huge influence that Mamelodi Sundowns midfield maestro, Teko Modise was having on the programme. Modise is an ambassador of the programme and continues to motivate the youngsters to believe in themselves as they develop their careers.
Last year’s winning school was Clapham High School in Pretoria, which is also a development school of the Sundowns programme. Clapham is one of the top footballing schools in the Gauteng province and has been in the legacy programme since 2014.
South African Schools Football Association (Sasfa) president, Mandla ‘Shoes’ Mazibuko said the partnership with McDonald’s was bearing fruit as ‘we continue to see dreams being realised and skills honed’.
Last year, Alexandra’s own Pholosho Junior Secondary School team took part for the very first time in the tournament but were unfortunate to be knocked out in the provincial finals by the ultimate winners of the tournament, Clapham.
The Pholosho team was captained by Terrence Moyo, an Alex Black Poison player, who said they had learnt a lot from the other schools in the tournament in terms of discipline and hoped this would work well for them in this year’s event.
Read: McDonald’s assigns football legends to work with schools around South Africa
