Burnaby Selects and the Sapperton Rovers Men's Club are pleased to announce they are associating to improve soccer development in the Burnaby District and to give players more opportunities to play and achieve high level success.
Burnaby Selects represents the top youth players in Burnaby and New Westminster aged 13 to 18. Royal City Youth Soccer Club recently joined Burnaby District for youth soccer and will be part of the Selects and its best players will invited to the Selects. Sapperton Rovers are the 2006 B.C. provincial champions with teams in the under-21, Men's Premier Open and Masters divisions of the Vancouver Metro Soccer League. Djiba Camara, who is a FIFA player agent will coach the u-21 team with assistance from John Penman. Burnaby Select players will get opportunities on the u-21 team and the best players will either be helped with professional overseas spots through Camara or will be invited to the Sapperton Rovers men's premier team.
"This will create a low-cost development pathway for Burnaby and New Westminster youth. We have heard from a lot of parents that some of the other programs are too expensive, so they are looking for an alternative", said Penman, of the Selects. "The key is to keep our youth program at a reasonable cost for those parents and players."
"A great feeder system like that offered by Burnaby Selects can only help us win another provincial championship" said Rovers president Bryan Wevers. "The addition of Djiba Camara, one of only two FIFA approved agents in B.C. is bound to keep the best players with the Burnaby Selects and move many of them to the Rovers."
The two organizations called the move a first step. The next step is for both organizations to do the paperwork in order to make this into a permanent solution. After that, we would like to do the same thing on the girls' side, they said.
