ARS U-17 2016 Football:
Girls’ Final: Buganda 1-0 Eastern
Boys Final: Buganda 1-2 Northern
Buganda and Northern regions won the respective girls and boys Airtel Rising Stars U-17 National titles on Sunday at the Uganda Technical College in Lira.
Josephine Ndagire scored for the Buganda girls team in the final against Eastern to win 1-0 in the first final of the day played.
In the second match, Northern region denied Buganda a double after winning 2-1 in a very exciting match watched by a very big crowd.
Musa Jjagwe scored in the his own net to give Northern the lead. Shortly after, towering defender Musa Ramathan doubled the lead to make it 2-0.
Karim Byaruhanga then scored the consolation for team Buganda.
This is after close to two months when the regional qualifiers were played in all the eight FUFA regions with the selected pool of players per region qualifying for the national grand finals which took place in Lira between 27th to 30th October 2016.
National youth coaches Hadijah Namuyanja and Peter Onen with other scouts have been on the look out to identify potential talents who will compete for slots at the Uganda U-17 team ahead of the CECAFA 2017 edition.
The tournament is proudly sponsored by the official Uganda Cranes’ sponsors – Airtel Uganda Limited for the last six years.
FUFA 1st Vice President Justus Mugisha, CEO Edgar Watson, FUFA Executive committee members Agnes Mugena and Dr Benard Patrick Ogwel attended the finals.
Dr Ogwel, also the national coordinator of the project was full of praise for the sponsors.
I would love to thank Airtel for consistently supporting this grass root youth development program. The different ARS seasons have nurtured talented players like Farouk Miya. Miya participated in ARS 2012, and today we still celebrating his success story
Airtel Uganda Limited was ably represented by their head of public relations, Faith Bugonzi.
“That was a very entertaining game of football. You guys are the next National Heroes. Like it was for Farouk Miya, a few seasons ago, the football scouts have noted your activity on the pitch, and good things will be coming your way.” Bugonzi said.
Mugisha thanked the sponsors, Airtel Uganda, the teams, media and the parents who have all worked to make the tournament better and better.
“I would love to thank Airtel for not being discriminatory with their sponsorship. Many sponsors come to us, and only want to sponsor the Uganda Cranes. But Airtel sponsors the beautiful game of football from the grassroots (both boys and girls) all the way to the Cranes at the top.” – FUFA Vice President, Justus Mugisha.
The nucleus of Uganda’s U-17 team at the 2017 CECAFA U-17 tournament stems from the selected crop of players at the tournament of ARS.
Preliminary Stage Results at the 2016 Grand finals played in Lira:
Boys:
Northern 3-2 Kampala
Kitara 0-4 Buganda
North East 0-1 Western
Western 0-1 West Nile
Kampala 1-3 North East
Buganda 1-0 Eastern
Western 0-0 Northern
West Nile 0-0 Kitara
North East 0-3 Northern
Western 1-2 Kitara
Kampala 1-2 Kitara
Kampala 0-0 Western
Buganda 3-0 West Nile
Semi-finals:
Northern 4-0 West Nile
Buganda 3-0 Western
Girls:
Northern 2-0 Eastern
Buganda 3-0 West Nile
Kampala 6-1 Kitara
North East 0-5 Western
Eastern 0-3 Kampala
West Nile 2-1 North East
Kitara 1-4 Northern
Western 2-1 Buganda
Kampala 7-0 Northern
North East 0-6 Buganda
Eastern 5-0 Kitara
West Nile 0-2 Western
Semi-finals:
Kampala 0 (3) – 0 (5) Buganda
Western 0 (3) – 0 (5) Eastern
