JOBURG YOUTH SOCCER CLINIC GETS DONATION OF PUMA AFRICAN UNITY KIT

PUMA has donated R250 000 worth of its Africa Unity Kit to a soccer clinic which was founded by a policeman to serve children from informal settlements in Johannesburg.

Constable Olebogeng Ntaolang, of the Honeydew police station north-west of Johannesburg, established the soccer clinic to combat teenage delinquency in the community. He was delighted to receive the donation which included Africa Unity shirts, as well as boots, socks, shorts, goalkeeper gloves and soccer balls.

“It is fantastic to be able to support the programme which Constable Ntaolang has put in place with the youngsters of Cosmos City and surrounds. He is doing amazing work with the players who seem to be growing from strength to strength,” said Brett Bellinger, the Marketing Director of PUMA SA.

Ntaolang started the soccer clinic with little more than his enthusiasm and a commitment and quickly attracted over a hundred boys. They train twice a week at the Nooitgedacht 88 Primary School and play as the Ikage (“build yourself”) team in the Rand Central League. The long term aim is to obtain their own land to build a formal clinic which includes quality education facilities for the players.

Explaining the significance of the Africa Unity Kit donation, Bellinger said the kit is sanctioned by FIFA as the official third kit of PUMA-sponsored African teams including continental champions Egypt and World Cup qualifiers Ghana, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Algeria. “In fact the kit we have donated is the actual playing kit that these teams would have worn had they been required to use the third kit during the World Cup,” he said.

The kit features an Africa Unity badge depicting two hands locked in a solidarity handshake, and the brown colour on the shirt was created by mixing African soil samples. A percentage of the profits from the sales of the kit and related products support Puma’s Play for Life campaign which is run in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – to fund wildlife and habitat conservation in Africa.

“The PUMA Unity collection was launched earlier this year in support of UNEP and the International Year of Biodiversity, which is 2010. So with this donation, PUMA is not only providing the Ikage team with the highest level technical playing kit there is available, but also raising awareness of the importance of Conservation in 2010,” Bellinger said.

The Play for Life campaign enables fans to cast their vote on FACEBOOK.COM/PUMA for their favourite conservation project to benefit from the ‘Play for Life’ fundraising efforts. Projects include:

• Support for Elephants in Ivory Coast and Liberia
• Promoting Community Participation in Gorilla Conservation
• Forest and Biodiversity Conservation in Democratic Republic of Congo
• Rhino: Back from the Brink?
• The African Lion: King Without A Kingdom
• Wildebeest and Zebra Migration Routes: Africa’s Fractured Superhighways