The 25 laureates will learn Chinese language for one year before attending a summer camp in China.

The Chinese language institute, Confucius in collaboration with the Roger Milla foundation, Coeur d’Afrique and the support programme for communication on Sino-Cameroon relations, PAC4, on Tuesday May 6th at the campus of IRIC in Yaounde, launched a training programme for some 25 young Cameroonian footballers to take part in a summer camp in China next year.

Speaking on the occasion, the director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Yaounde II, Yu-Guoyang, said the Milla foundation was chosen because of his prowess at the 1990 world cup which erected him to a role model for youths who aspire to play football. He disclosed that there were similar projects for journalists and that other programmes will follow with time.

Roger Milla said the launching of the programme coincides with the nine years of existence of his foundation which was set up to support government action in the domains of education, health and sports. Meanwhile the director of PAC4, Henri Severin Assembe said relations with China were the best for Africa.

He called on the youths to emulate Milla’s example through hard work. The ceremony also saw the handing over of a gift to Roger Milla and demonstrations of thai-chi and judo martial arts sports disciplines from China.

The Confucius Institute created in August 2007 is said to be the best of three such centres existing in Africa. The institute has set up 15 Chinese language teaching centres in three centres in Cameroon with a total enrolment of over 6500 students.