Masterclass Talent Exhibition Lagos Nigeria - What's Next for Africa's Biggest Football Scouting Event [Meet the Chairman, Organizing Committee]

#1. Let's meet you Sir?

I am Benson Chukwueke, Co-founder as well as Chairman, organizing committee of Masterclass Talent Exhibition, 2017 Edition.

#2. Why Masterclass Talent Exhibition? What's the Concept all about?

Masterclass Talent Exhibition (MTE) is perhaps an answer to the cry of millions of grassroots, semi professional and professional football players, seeking for a platform to showcase their football talent and skills to the world. We came about this concept through feedbacks we got from CheerOnNigeria Blog.

CheerOnNigeria Blog is the publications of GreenHunters Sports International, a Sport Marketing outfit based in Lagos Nigeria, which I am also the Chief Executive Officer.

We receive over a thousand calls daily through our various contact forms, email, phone calls, chats... of  people getting us to pay attention to the need of talented football players in the nook and cranes across Africa, estimated to be over 100 million youths, pushing so intense to break out to limelight...so intense we couldn't just ignore their 'out cry.'

We found ourselves enagaging several of these players... and the incredible talents we discovered from the several players assessment programs we held convinced us even the more that we just have to do something to meet this need. So we set out to collaborate with Amiyno Sports Management and Kingchuza to organize this Scouting event.


#3. So what are the goals and objectives; What Solutions does MTE provides?

MTE is bridging the gap between talented players at the grassroots level and the various professional football clubs across the globe needing their services. MTE provide a platform where these skillful players can display their talents in front of invited Club Managers, Scouts, Agents and the media.

Our Vision is to make MTE the Biggest and most popular Scouting event in Africa. Already players from Ghana, Guinea, Cameroon, Zambia, Kenya, Nambia... have indicated interest to participate in the program. And in this first edition we struggled a bit with bringing in Coaches, Scouts and Agents from Europe, Asia and America.

We are hoping to build a preferred brand where Major clubs around the world will insist their officials come to scout for players in our subsequent editions.

Our Mission is to help alleviate poverty across Africa by empowering youths with alternative means of livelyhood. With the Kind of money thrown at pro-players these days, we believe our success in getting any of these players scouted and possibly sign for big teams will help alleviate poverty in their family lineage.

Beyond our primary goal, we are also building ROLE MODELS that will inspire other youths to aspire for greatness.

#4. What are the Challenges you faced in this first edition of MTE?

The MTE is a capital intensive project... and we had initial challenge of funding, but we had to get what we refer to as ''Golden Boot Capitalization option," a venture capitalist regime that bankrolled the football event for a percentage commission from any successful signing. So we got Kingchuza, the Solar people, on board who invested less than N2million for an event estimated to cost N20million or so. Of course, that put us on a very  tight budget, which greatly limited the ideal concept

#5. With All these challenges, would you say this first edition was a success?

We are so excited with the outcome of this first edition, already we see that the second edition will be far better. The performances of some participants gave us so much joy, super striker Moses Alemoh, quick and sharp shooting,  could be an instant hit in Europe. Tough and skillful defensive midfielder, Chika Johnson, can make the first team of any top team in the world.

Young and enteprising Divine and Tochukwu were outstanding in their techniques and ball intelligence.. could easily get the attention of any coach in the world....

We have all their performances documented on video and will be sending them to our contacts in Europe, Asia and America. We are very hopeful that in the following weeks some of them will be contacted for club trials abroad.

#6. What's Ahead, what are your projections for the future?

We have always known that Sponsorship is the life blood of any Sporting event. And we are working on the brand preference of MTE... that will make it the most attractive football scouting event in Africa. We are hoping we could attract some Associate Sponsors for the 2018 edition.

Already the media awareness of MTE as a news worthy event is growing, especially online. We are optimistic that most of the media elements will go viral over the next six months. Already our feedback has been tremendous...thousands of grassroots players are asking us daily when we will  hold the second edition.

We have already put place some mechanism that could help us expand our network with major clubs around the world, especially in Europe, China and USA. The future is bright for MTE!

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