Je­lani Beck­les

For­mer na­tion­al Un­der-20 foot­ball prospect Lan­nel Hamil­ton wants to con­tin­ue his dream of be­com­ing a pro­fes­sion­al play­er, but needs spon­sor­ship to at­tend a UE­FA Foot­ball Camp in Aus­tria.

Six­teen play­ers from around the world in­clud­ing Hamil­ton, were se­lect­ed to at­tend the five-month camp, which be­gan on Sep­tem­ber 1 and ends on Jan­u­ary 31, 2016. Play­ers from Ivory Coast, Ar­genti­na, South Africa, New Zealand and Eng­land among oth­ers are ex­pect­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the camp. The or­gan­is­ers of the camp have giv­en Ham­li­ton un­til the end of Sep­tem­ber to join the camp.

Agents and scouts from some of the top foot­ball clubs in Eu­rope are ex­pect­ed to at­tend the camp seek­ing new foot­balling tal­ent to join their clubs.Hamil­ton, 22, who is a ver­sa­tile play­er that can play any­where in the mid­field, trained with the na­tion­al U-20 team in 2012 and 2013. He has rep­re­sent­ed St Ann's Rangers and Joe Pub­lic in the past.

Hamil­ton stat­ed: "I am very proud of my achieve­ments. The hard work and ded­i­ca­tion of a lot of peo­ple con­nect­ed with me to my suc­cess and up­lift­ment has al­so led to on-field suc­cess. I would great­ly ap­pre­ci­ate your as­sis­tance and spon­sor­ship to fur­ther my sport­ing ca­reer to an­oth­er lev­el of suc­cess and to rep­re­sent my coun­try with pride on an in­ter­na­tion­al stage."

While Hamil­ton has man­aged to raise suf­fi­cient funds for his flights to and from Kla­gen­furt, Aus­tria (where the UE­FA camp is sit­u­at­ed), he is not in the fi­nan­cial po­si­tion to af­ford the costs of ac­com­mo­da­tion for the five-month pe­ri­od.He is seek­ing spon­sor­ship to fi­nance his ac­com­mo­da­tion costs. The cost of the ac­com­mo­da­tion for the five-month pe­ri­od will be ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$40,000.

Af­ter Hamil­ton re­ceived and ac­cept­ed the of­fer over two months ago, there was a de­lay on UE­FA's part in send­ing him all of the doc­u­ments con­firm­ing his place at the camp. How­ev­er, all of the doc­u­ments have now been re­ceived from UE­FA.

UE­FA have ac­cept­ed full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for send­ing the doc­u­ments late, and thus far UE­FA agent Armin Som­rak has said that if any prospec­tive spon­sor had any prob­lems or fur­ther queries they can email him at som­rak@public­sport.at

Per­sons can con­tact Hamil­ton at 310-6798, 307-4023, 389-7278 or lan­nelh@ya­hoo.com.