Airtel Nigeria confirmed its rating as a socially responsible company in Nigeria with the sponsorship of the maiden edition of the just ended Airtel Rising Stars U-17 tournament which ran nationwide for a month.

After a year after coming into the Nigeria telecom market, Airtel Nigeria has gone on to establish itself as a consumer friendly telecom service provider with a rich line of  products that have become consumers’ delight.

The Airtel Rising Stars U-17 Tourney, a unique pan African initiative of Airtel Africa, was designed to provide support for the development of football talents across her African markets. It is aimed at discovering talented youngsters, (male and female), of secondary school age and providing them the opportunity to gain football skills and develop into renowned stars.

The Grassroots football project expectedly built a bond between Airtel and its customers across the countries through customer engagement, fun, excitement, and opportunity to watch and experience football as well as create positive change in the society through a tie-back to the CSR program.

From Gombe across Kano through Jos down Port Harcourt to Lagos, the Airtel Rising Stars U-17 train moved amidst pomp and pageantry, reflecting in the number of youngsters who registered to participate in the tournament – a whopping 5884 youngsters across the nation.

The Airtel brand more than ever, now resonates strongly with these youngsters demonstrated by their level of individual and collective interest shown towards the brand. As the Captain of the winning Team said, ‘We are indeed very proud and grateful to Airtel for this wonderful opportunity given to us to prove ourselves.

We cannot pay Airtel back; but one thing is sure – Airtel is the brand for the youth and the future generation of Nigerians, we are proud of Airtel.’

The project was executed in phases: regional Open Camp which held in nine centres nationwide; zonal Closed Camp which took place in Ibadan; National Championship in Lagos and international tourney in South Africa.

While the various phases were going on, these were complemented with a CSR programme involving donation of money on the basis of goals scored during the tournament, to Airtel’s educational initiative. A total of 34 goals were scored during the three-day National Championship in Lagos.

Airtel’s commitment to the development of the round leather game was underlined by the roll-call at the project launch in Lagos on July 11, 2011.

The launch was graced by the Nigerian football community led by the Director General, National Sports Commission (NSC), Dr. Patrick Ekeji, Tournament partner, Kanu Nwankwo, President and officials of Youth Sports Federation of Nigeria (YSFON), Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) chieftains, officials from Nigerian School Sports Federation, the media, agency partners, and the Ministry of Education among others.

The international competition, which comes up in October, will in addition to Nigerian team, also feature teams from the non-Manchester United Airtel countries and will hold in South Africa. Over three and half million naira cash prizes were awarded to outstanding individuals and teams.