Kwara State Government Losing Big Money To Scouts By Not Funding Academy Well– Bako, KFA Boss

Eighty percent of transfer money on players trained and groomed by Kwara Football Academy, KFA, go to scouts who facilities trials and consequent sales of the academy product, says Alh. Ibrahim Bako, Director Sports, Kwara Sports Commission, KSC, and sole administrator of the state owned soccer academy.

Speaking on Wednesday in Ilorin, the seasoned sports administrators said that while KFA remains the only sports facility remitting revenue to the state government, what is being repatriated in terms of money into government coffers is mere pretence compared to what scouts take on their players.

“Where we needed government funding is in the areas of this players being selected for trials by scouts.

“The scouts are the ones who take the responsibilities of these players. Especially when they travel abroad.

“So the academy only lives on few percentage that is left. For example two of our players that are going to Spain, some scouts came to fetch them here, they are in their camp, there.

“If the players move abroad now, the scout takes 80 percent of whatever money comes from transfer of these players.

“But if we had the money to sponsor the cost to the trials, we take 85 percent and the agent/scout takes 15 percent of the transfer money.

“So the larger percentage of the money that should come to the academy goes to the agent,” Bako explained.

The sports director made this disclosure during the ‘Sports Hard Talk, a maiden news platform created by Sports Writers Association of Nigeria, SWAN, Kwara State chapter.

The program, according to the sports writers body was created to bring sports stakeholders before media scrutiny to generate news content and fashion out policy advisory on sports in the state and the country at large.

Bako’s presentation on the platform has as it’s topic, ‘KFA: The Journey So Far, My Passion For Grassroots Soccer’.

Speaking on his administration of KFA, Nigeria’s oldest surviving soccer academy still ranked, arguably, as the best in West Africa, Bako, while admitting that government puts money into running the soccer school, argues that there are no critical funding in the later stage of soccer business that really yields money.

Bako was a former secondary school teacher and a key figure secondary school soccer competition some years back.

He revealed that the academy has witnessed genuine transformation since his appointment as the academy’s administrator, pointing out that the operations and policies of the college are in tandem with what is obtainable globally.

He stressed that the academy has four lush green pitches, versatile NIS and FIFA accredited coaches as well as qualified teachers who are tutoring the students both in academic and practical football sessions inline with the vision and philosophy behind the establishment of the college.