What the Siya crew has been told…

Farouk Khan, who has been the director of Stars of Africa Academy since 2003, is known for his passion for football, and especially football development, where he has amassed a wealth of experience.

Taking all of this experience, he will now be opening what is known as ‘Stars of Africa – The Atrium’, which is set to officially open its doors soon.

According to the former Kaizer Chiefs assistant coach, this new and improved facility will house over 100 of the country’s finest talents, running along the lines of the successful Transnet School of Excellence model, only better, where players receive world-class football training and education – a School of Excellence on steroids!

“I think it’s something that has been in the making for a number of years. I think we were hamstrung with finance. Fortunately, a friend of mine who was Godsent, he owns this building and he made the building available to us at a very, very cheap rental (fee). There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done, which he volunteered to do for us. Obviously we have to pay back what he is investing, but at the same time we don’t have to go to banks and borrow money. There’s still obviously the fact that we are looking at sponsors coming on board now, even branding it – even if we have to call it the KFC Academy, for example. We don’t mind because we want to reach out to the broader public. We believe an academy of this nature is very important. I’ll tell you why. If you look at the normal set-up in development, most kids go to normal schools, they’ll come back in the evening and in the afternoons they go to training for an hour-and-a-half and they go home. That’s not sufficient,” he said.

Khan hopes that the facility will open its doors in November this year but will begin operating in January 2024.

Part of his long terms goals is to share knowledge with other coaches as well as develop players that he would like to see represent South Africa at international levels.

“I’m excited about it. The first time I had a colouring book, and with the colouring book I produced some really good players with God’s help. Now I have a canvas to paint on and with this, the sky is the limit and I’m not taking Sundowns’ cliché away from them,” adds Khan.