NUL Spears head coach Alecs Basitang has established and officially registered the first sports academy in the country – the Vultures Sports Academy (VSA) meant to nurture young local talent under the age of nine.

Basitang who is a Botswana citizen told Metro that he formed the sports academy after he noticed a gap in Lesotho’s sports development.

“I realized that in Lesotho, grassroots level is not much considered in developing sports, so I decided to engage development in every sporting code.  In the southern African region, we have many tournaments solely meant for the youth, hence I found it wise to groom young people of the right age for such tournaments,” he said.

He realised that most academies focus on football or in one sporting code, hence he decided to establish an academy which will cater for sports in general.

His plan is to visit schools and use their facilities so that parents would readily collect their children from their respective schools after training sessions.

“We are going to work with local English medium schools starting with the ones located in Maseru then move to the districts thereafter. I am going to approach Sofia English Medium in Butha-Buthe so that we could sign a memorandum of understanding.

“Then we will locate coaches in Butha Buthe to work with in the northern region of the country before expanding to other districts at a later stage.

“Our focus is not to have a great pool but a manageable group to start with, others will see what is happening and they will follow.

“We aim to teach children the importance of not just competing, but competing to conquer and win medals. We are going to teach them to know from the age of nine what is meant by competition,” he said.