Osi Umenyiora working on a new way for African talent to enter NFL
Two-time Super Bowl champion Osi Umenyiorais one of the people leading the charge to find potential NFL-caliber talent across Africa. The Nigerian-American football star traveled to Africa for a series of clinics and camps.
Osi Umenyiora believes that American football and African athletes go together perfectly. He started playing football at the age of 15 and went on to have a prosperous career in the NFL.
Now, at 40, he is searching for young players who could turn American football into a more internationally acknowledged and famed game.
The league has already more than 100 players of African descent. In 2020, Umenyiora and Ejike Ugboaja founded The Uprise, a platform to find talents. Three Nigerians from the program were signed to NFL rosters. To learn more about players of African descent, and place good bets, you can go to online betting companies. Try the sports betting promo codes for a start to get you going!
The first official camp of the NFL official African platform was held in Africa last month. The best 49 players were invited to the NFL's International Player Pathway, which gives athletes from outside the US and Canada the opportunity to get a spot on an NFL team.
Umenyiora said in an interview that he was looking for a way to help the game expand. To introduce American Football to the UK, he had to have local players. The idea is to get people from around the world into the NFL, to have more interest from other countries. The International Player Pathway is a program that lets people from around the world be seen.
He also said that in the last 10 years he noticed more African names appear in the NFL, but they were not highlighted enough. That was when Ejike Ugboaja came to him with the idea of sponsoring young Nigerian footballers and allowing them to play. Being the NFL ambassador at the time, Umenyiora started the Uprise camp. Umenyiora said he saw American football as a greater opportunity than basketball or soccer, due to the number of players involved. He stated that Africans had the abilities that gave them an advantage in sport. He sees the future of many kids in American football. Many top American football players used to be basketball players before, as the movements are quite similar.
Three successful players were coming out of the camp, who have already signed to the NFL. Umenyiora explains that he managed to select them thanks to his experience in football and thus noticing the needed traits in people. He could see it in the smallest movements. So, although these people had never played football before, when tested, he could see them standing out.
In the future, Umenyiora is planning to bring in the top coaches on several months’ basis. He is hoping to see a time when at least 15 to 20 percent of the NFL players would be from Africa.
Nine players will be going to the International Player Pathway combine in London and six will be going to the academy in the UK. So, in total, 15 players have the opportunity to change their lives.