Martin Davis and Kaya Beckford who travelled to Spain this year on a one week scholarship to the Valencia Football Club Summer camp have both impressed the Spanish coaches and have been called back to Spain to pursue their training. The summer scholarships were awarded to the boys following their outstanding performance at the Next Generation Valencia CF Easter Football Camp held in Jamaica earlier this year.
Davis, 12, has been accepted to the Valencia CF Academy to work with the under 17 second team and begins his semester at the end of October. Beckford, on the other hand, will be joining the E1 Valencia Academy. Both boys will attend the prestigious Caxton College, a British curriculum school considered to be one of the best British schools in Spain with excellent academic results and exceptional educational and sporting facilities.
According to Howard McIntosh of the JFF, “This is a significant accomplishment for these youngsters and for Jamaica on a whole. The Jamaica Football Federation is tremendously proud to be associated with the Next Generation camps which have really delivered on its promise to develop Jamaican football at the youth level. The Valencia camps for both footballers and coaches are of the highest standard, and the opportunity for select players to train in Spain makes the prospect even more valuable for Jamaica.”
Valencia born Victor Salazar-Chang, principal of The Next Generation VCF Camp, says “My vision is truly being realized. We started the annual camp earlier this year in the hopes of raising the bar for youth football by introducing Spanish style strategies and techniques … I never expected that any of the kids would go on, after the first staging, to train in Valencia. The truth is that there is so much natural talent here that we envision Jamaica, through initiatives such as these, dominating in the football arena as they do in other sporting disciplines such as track and field. Ultimately, my personal dream is for a Jamaican to play for Valencia and I believe it will become a reality sooner rather than later.” Salazar went on to thank all the camp sponsors especially presenting sponsors Claro and Scotiabank, and added that Scotia has even committed a further one thousand US dollars (US$1000.00)each to assist the boys with their training.
The Next Generation VCF Camp, a subsidiary of Taino Trade and Investment Limited, has since staged a very successful camp in Bermuda, from which three more scholarship winners were selected, and plan two more in the first quarter of next year in Cayman and Jamaica in March and April respectively.
The Next Generation VCF Camps are part of the Valencia Football Club’s ongoing efforts to promote the club internationally. According to Salazar, “It is a remarkable opportunity for Jamaican kids not just to benefit from Valencia’s know-how and strategies on local soil but to travel to Spain and participate in the Club experience first-hand”. He adds, “We are also working on opening up the opportunity to even more kids as we expect Valencia CF to set up a permanent school in Jamaica in a few years. Our two ambassadors have made us proud and have really paved the way for even more exciting developments.”
The Valencia internationalization effort has already seen the establishment of the first official Valencia school outside of Spain in Kobe, Japan, and camps in Scotland and Wales. A second school is slated to be opened later this year (2010) in Cairo, Egypt. Jamaica has already hosted one of its three scheduled annual camps and the Valencia CF has committed to establishing a permanent Campus in Jamaica by 2013.
Along with presenting sponsors Scotiabank and Claro, other sponsors of the Jamaican camp included Pepsi, Spanish Court Hotel, Western Sports, the Spanish/Jamaica Foundation, American Airlines, KFC and snack sponsors Keebler and Herrs, and was endorsed by the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture, the Embassy of Spain, the Spanish Jamaica Foundation, the University of the West Indies and the Jamaica Football Federation.