JEDDAH, 21 July 2005 — Young soccer players from the Kingdom’s various cities, districts and local soccer pitches put in extra hours on the field this week to hone their skills for what many considered the opportunity of a lifetime.
The quarter-page ad that appeared in Okaz last week, read: “Fulfill your dream and join up now. If you are 16 or older, try your luck at a chance to play for English football club Newcastle United for at least one year. SoccaStars, the internationally renowned television program for discovering young talented soccer players is coming to Jeddah.”
And so it did, attracting nearly four hundred young men and boys for two days of trials at the Ministry of Education’s sports stadium located in the Al-Faisaliyah District.
Revealing details of the tryouts, Amr Koura, CEO of Al-Karma Edutainment and Executive Producer of Arab SoccaStars said that a team of highly professional talent scouts closely scrutinized hundreds of aspirants before short-listing promising young sportsmen from among the hundreds of participants that came from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States.
“The response has been fabulous and beyond our wildest expectations, and we are looking forward to moving on to our final two destinations of Lebanon and Algeria,” Koura told Arab News.
After two days of tryouts, Majed Essam Ghashaha, Omar Saeed Al-Khemaishey, Badr Mislah Al-Malki, El-Mamoun Al-Nour, Ahmad Mohammed Krinshy, Abdul Rahman Bokhari, Mohammed Ahmad Al-Amoudi, Tamim Jamal Al-Tamimi, Misfir Al-Dossary, Hamidi Al-Dossary, Udai Talal Amro, Hatim Al-Aseemi, and Ahmad Al-Silami were selected to attend to go compete against the other promising young Arab players selected during SoccaStars’ trials held in Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Algeria and Lebanon.
The 13 players selected in Saudi Arabia will join six players from Bahrain, 11 from Egypt, six from Kuwait, 13 from the UAE and a yet undetermined number from Algeria and Beirut during a two month SoccaSkills camp in Egypt.
Beginning on Aug. 2 on Future Television (Al-Mustaqbal), SoccaStars 2005 will air weekly, in a similar format to that of the popular television show Star Academy. Television viewers from around the world will be able to cast their votes eliminating players every week, until only one player is left. It is he that will be offered the one-year contract playing for Newscastle United.
SoccaStars will be hosted by Bassel Maher and Majdala Khattar, who themselves earned their places as presenters in a similar competition held by Melody TV just over one year ago. “It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. For us, as presenters, the major incentive is to be able to trot around the Arab world as SoccaStars’ ambassadors and build the good will among the participants.”
