WINSTON Chung Fah is partnering with the Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ) and Alliance Sports Management (Jamaica) Limited in a mutimillion-dollar project to build a Football Academy of Excellence to assist in the personal development of young Jamaican footballers from five to 16 years old.

The academy, which will be located on 30 acres of land at Bernard Lodge, St Catherine, will also be getting assistance from a football club in Europe, but the authorities were unwilling to identify that club at this time.

The announcement was made at a press conference at the SCJ Boardroom, yesterday.

It is understood that the facility will be able to house up to 150 players and will consist of 10 football fields, including one of international size. Ground is expected to be broken within three to six months.

Chung Fah, chairman for the Winston Chung Centre of Excellence Limited, and founder of the 50-year-old Santos Football Club, and veteran coach, said that the main reason for building a football academy is to help in developing the youths of Jamaica through football.

“I believe firmly in what I was doing in the Cayman Islands…. I have over 80 children that I send to good universities and preparatory schools in the United States… I have five children under 13 years that are currently in England in clubs and I am saying that I shouldn’t be there,” Chung Fah said.

“This is where I ought to be… This is where I should

be, here in Jamaica helping our children, who will be heroes of tomorrow.

“This journey is not about Winston Chung, I am just a part of a puzzle that will fit right in the masterpiece, which is the football academy. This centre is expected to produce young heroes, who will act as role models for the youths of the communities from which they come,” Chung Fah stressed.

He also said that every child will benefit from the academy.

“The expectations are that anyone who passes through this school of excellence will find advancement in either academia with some aided source, be placed with an overseas club or otherwise be gainfully engaged — no one will leave this academy without something,” he affirmed.

“Hold my hands and take me to the mountaintop, I want this academy to be the best in the Caribbean,” he added.

Also speaking at the conference, Donna Scott-Mottley, chairman for Sugar Company of Jamaica Holdings Limited, said that her company is pleased to be a part of this project.

“I am delighted to be here today to announce my company’s involvement in this project. We are a team and we should all work together, we at Sugar Company of Jamaica are pleased with this partnership because this academy is going to impact positively on this country and we want to be a part of this initiative,” she said.

President of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), Captain Horace Burrell, said that the JFF will lend its support to the building of the football academy.

“This initiative is very important to building football in Jamaica, and we at the JFF are fully in support of it.”

Also present at the conference were Rudolph Speid, KSAFA’s president and Transport, Works and Housing Minister Dr Omar Davies.