Q&A with Right to Dream founder and Ceo Tom Vernon

By Ameenu Shardow

Ghana is blessed with one of the finest football academies in Africa in Right to Dream located south of Akosombo in the Eastern Region.

The fully residential $1.5m facility which sits over 42-acre land houses fifty five players and could also boats of one of the finest staff in the business.

And after 11-years of its inception, GHANAsoccernet.com in an exclusive interview with its founder and Ceo, Tom Vernon finds out how the vision of the academy was conceived, its development over the years, how it is financed, its mode of selection amongst others.

GSN: Thank you very much for inviting us over.

TV: You are most welcome.

GSN: Could you please tell us how and when the idea of this academy was first conceived?

TV: I conceived the idea during my days in the Premier League in Ghana. I was looking at the standard of everything.. it was good but if you look at the kids on the streets and the players in the Premier League I felt something was missing. While the players were good, I believed they could be better and that was what brought fourth this idea.

GSN: So what are some of the things you thought hindered the players from getting better?

TV: Well you look at the typical problem that a young footballer faces in Ghana, his equipment, his nutrition, his education and then the time to play maybe the demands of the family and all that. We have the situation when over 20 or 30 kids play with one ball on a grassless surface, all these things limited the full development of a player and we started addressing them all one-by-one.

GSN: So where did you start?

TV: We started in Accra with non-residential, and then we began feeding some of them, paying school fees, equipping them and we grew and grew and along the line people liked the idea and they came to support us.

GSN: The facility here is reported to have cost $1.5m  and I believe it keeps growing so how do you manage to finance this huge project?

TV: Like I said, people liked the idea and therefore they came from areas to support. We currently have Vodafone who contributes our budget substantially and also have some schools in the US supporting with scholarship schemes because of our educational program which is very popular there. I also established some business when I first set up this academy which donates everything to the academy so it is funded by various means.

GSN: So at this stage, what are your plans of improving this facility?

TV: Well we have planned everything; we are now finishing the sports science department which will have a modern gym, medical facilities and offices four our coaches and video analysts which we will be naming after the late Alhaji Sly Tetteh. We at the moment have two pitches and you could see two teams training on one pitch which I don’t like so we are designing four eight-aside pitches and two more full-size pitches so we would have eight pitches which means each team here would tow pitches.

GSN: So how many players are with Right to Dream Academy?

TV: We have fifty five here and about thirty outside pursuing either their football or educational careers. We have a staff of about thirty five including teachers and everything.

GSN: How do you recruit talents into your academy?

TV: We tour all over the country and we look for kids who can play and also quiet educated but most importantly is their attitude because that is one of our virtues here. To get talents with the right attitude because its a pre-requisite for future success.

GSN: Your academy appears very serious with its educational aspect apart from the football which the kids like to play. Why is that?

TV: Well, I don’t need to explain to you why education is very important. There are a lot of players we recruit here and not all of them will get the chance to become top stars with football and therefore we would like to give every child here an alternative to a better life and that is mainly achieved through education. We have schools in the US who are always ready to offer full scholarships to our players infact we reject about $2m scholarships every year because we don’t have the numbers thus every child which is recruited to Right to Dream have a guaranteed five year-scholarship scheme.

GSN: Have authorities been supportive of this academy?

TV: Yes they have been very supportive. The Ghana FA President came here and declared support for us and every now and then there is the academy committee meetings to see how we can make the academy system here more efficient. The minister also has given support because really I don’t think we should be made to pay taxes for the equipments we bring in here to help the kids. We also would like companies interested ins supporting us get some tax reduction and all these the minister has pledge to help in that regard so the support is good.

GSN: Will this academy be always about football and no other sport?

TV: No, we are currently involved with disabled sport where we are supporting four athletes there to make the London 2012 Olympics and that is a start. We hope to build an academy exclusively for that to recruit young ones with some kind of disability so we can gradually change the negative perception people have of disabled people, it is something very dear to my heart. It is also our plan to veer into other sports but we take it one at a time so we don’t get ahead of ourselves.

GSN: Finally, what is the future like for this academy?

TV: Well, we are looking to develop the area, most of our graduates here would want to get their houses around this area so they can be close to the academy which will also develop this area. I am also looking forward to getting more and more Ghanaians involved because really this is for them, to have more coaches, medical staff etc being Ghanaian.

GSN: Thank you for having us.

TV: Thank you for coming.