Teenagers across Rwanda set to compete for the Second Edition of Airtel Rising Stars …As the annual soccer tournament kicks off

   The second edition of the Airtel rising star kicks off –  girls’ team to be included
•    Airtel rising stars registration in all 4 regions of the country

Kigali, Rwanda. April 4, 2014 – Airtel Rwanda has today kicked off registrations for teams that intend to participate in the second edition of Airtel Rising Stars Season 2, a tournament that will see the total number of participants go up to 1,600 under 17 teenagers countrywide.

For the second year running, Airtel will provide another opportunity for budding stars in Rwanda and Africa to showcase their football skills and to gauge their raw talent against continental peers.  This season, which has now been amplified to constitute a girls’ team will see 80 teams, 48 boy’s teams and 32 teams selected across the country.

Making the announcement, Teddy Bhullar, Managing Director of Airtel Rwanda said, “Airtel Rising Stars is committed to growing grassroot football in Rwanda and Africa as a whole.  We believe emphatically that nurturing young talent is the means by which we will ensure the foundations of the game in this country stay strong. It would be great to see Rwandans support the teams that will represent the country at continental level.”

Also speaking at the same event, the president of FERWAFA, Mr. Degaule Vincent Nzamwita said, “Airtel Rwanda has demonstrated strong support for nurturing football talent in the country. We at FERWAFA as the football custodians of the country will ensure that we support in every way possible to make sure that Rwanda is well represented at the Pan African tournament.

While this will be the second edition of the Airtel risings tars in Rwanda, the fourth edition of the initiative is set to take place in 16 countries across Africa with hundreds of thousands of youngsters taking part in the regional and national tournaments. The best teams of each country will be pitted against each other in the Airtel Africa Championship. The winning teams will receive a total of Rwf8m which will be put towards the players’ education.

The 2013 pan-African Championship Tournament saw the girls from Tanzania and the boys from Niger emerge as the Airtel Rising Stars champions. By designing a big stage for the teams and the future soccer stars, Airtel is inching closer to its objective of becoming the biggest and most consistent supporter of grassroots football in Africa.

Date for the soccer clinics
Rwanda will this month host the Airtel soccer clinics in which the best players of the Airtel Africa Championship will get the opportunity to be trained by the biggest football clubs in the world: Arsenal FC and Manchester United.  Rwanda will be the host country for the Arsenal soccer clinic while Tanzania will be the host country for the Manchester soccer clinic.

It is through these workshops that players get a chance to take their talent to the next level and get a sense of how it feels to be a professional footballer.

The Airtel Rising Stars initiative, the biggest Under-17 grassroots tournament on the African continent, aims at identifying talent and nurturing upcoming footballers. This is one of the few football equal opportunity initiatives that targets boys and girls. Over the years, the Airtel Rising Stars initiative has yielded many success stories and has enabled several upcoming soccer talents to join Africa Premier League clubs and their countries’ national teams.

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Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading global telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst the top 4 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India, the company\’s product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G wireless services, mobile commerce, fixed line services, high speed DSL broadband, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G wireless services and mobile commerce. Bharti Airtel had over 287 million customers across its operations at the end of December 2013. To know more please visit, www.airtel.com