Edward Osei-Kwaku, Minister for Youth and Sports has challenged the management of the Ghana Football Association (GFA) to find ways of making the achievements of the national youth teams to reflect on the senior national team, the Black Stars.

In a speech read for him by Emmanuel Owusu-Ansah, Acting Chief Executive of the National Sports Council (NSC) at the launch of the Mylik Classic under-19 Football Tournament, he said even though currently "we celebrate the achievements of the junior national teams it is important that we recognise that there is a yarning gap between success at the junior level and senior level.

He praised Mylik Sporting Limited for instituting the tournament, which would bring the youth from all over the world to show their soccer talents and at the same time give them the opportunity to increase their market value.

The tournament is scheduled for the Accra Sports Stadium from 20 - 30 November and would involve eight team divided in to two groups with the first two moving to the semi-finals before the finals.

Osei-Kwaku said the Mylik Classic under-19 Football Tournament is in consonance with government's policy of private sector participation in national development. "It is in this direction that I will lend my support to all progressive programmes of Mylik and encourage more private sector participation in the development and management of Ghana Sports."

Kofi Bawuah, Chief Executive Officer of Mylik Sporting Limited said the venture started with a dream to put in place a mechanism that would help bring about a systematic bottom up development of sports in the country.

He said some of the objectives for starting the company are to organise community football development, player management, staging of youth football tournaments and marketing of quality sports wears. Bawuah said it in line with the company's objectives that they have started a community sports project at Jamasi in the Ashanti Region, which would take the form of football academy to provide football education to the Youth of the region.

"Currently we already have the basic infrastructure in the form of a building that can house 40 students in the first instance and it is our hope that we expand it to 200 students by 2004." He said the Mylik Classic under-19 Football Tournament would be an annual affair and would start off with the youth teams of Accra Hearts of Oak, Liberty Professional, F C Midjiland, and a British Council Community Sports Initiative team, all from Accra.

Bawuah said Asante Kotoko and Corners Babies would come from Kumasi, Feyernorod Academy from Gomoah-Fetteh and Racing Club from Ivory Coast. He said Ghana soccer is be-devilled with many problems including the rushing of talented young players into playing at the senior level leading to their early burnout. "It is our aim to identify such players for careful observations and monitoring with the aim of building a reservoir to feed local clubs and national teams in the future."

Bawuah said it is the aim of his company to work together with the NSC, GFA and the Ghana Education Service to streamline youth football in Ghana by installing a football league solely for young footballers in second cycle educational institutes and football academies.

Present at the ceremony were Kwadwo Mpiani, Chief of Staff Office of the President, Teddy Humphreys, Director British Council, Yaw Bawuah, former Chairman of Kumasi Asanti Kotoko and representatives of some of the clubs to play in the tournament.