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Following the 2007 event held in Burkina Faso last autumn, ten players involved successfully migrated to Europe, signing for clubs in France, Spain, Norway and Romania. These included 21 year old midfielder Emmanuel Kouamatien Koné, who won the John Haynes Breakthrough Player Trophy at this year's Toulon Festival.
Since winning that award, Koné has also gone on to represent Cote d'Ivoire at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing and has featured in three FIFA World Cup 2010 qualifiers for the full senior side.
This year's UEMOA competition is taking place from 2nd-9th November in the Malian city of Bamako. The eight nations are split into two groups of four, with each team facing each other once. The winners of each group will then face each other in the final.
And as well as providing full details for every game played within the ProScout7 database, Jerome Lebatard of Scout7 France will also be attending the competition with members of the company's French scouting team, who will objectively assess every player involved.
Lebatard believes that it is essential the company supports it client clubs, particularly those in French speaking countries, by providing unparalleled levels of information on African domestic and international football.
"We have seen over the past decade a huge rise in the number of players being monitored in West and North African domestic leagues by European clubs," explains Lebatard.
"As a result, we have spent the past eighteen months building a database of information which greatly assists our clients in identifying emerging talent from these regions, both for club and country.
"The UEMOA tournament is another example of where we can highlight players who have been selected to play for their national team having excelled domestically, where in addition to providing general match information, we are also making a supplementary report available to our clients that includes general assessments on every player who makes an appearance.
"This report has been commissioned following a number of requests made by clubs in Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 and I hope we can assist their recruitment departments in highlighting players that possess the ability to make the transition to European domestic football."
The nations competing in the UEMOA tournament are using the event to prepare for the CHAN Tournament that is taking place in March, which will feature squads from nations across the entire continent made up of African-based players.
And Lebatard is of the opinion that there is a conscious initiative across Africa to promote the abilities of players who play for local clubs.
He points out: "We have heard a number of African national team head coaches stressing the importance of next year's CHAN tournament to assess the suitability of players for their full senior teams.
"There appears to be a consensus within leading African nations that there are a number of players who possess potential that are still based in Africa, but because of the strength of the leading nations, who often field teams with eleven European based players, they are not getting the opportunity to shine on the international stage.
"Therefore events such as UEMOA and CHAN can provide local players with a platform to highlight their abilities to national coaches and European scouts alike, where if they can deliver outstanding performances, can give themselves every opportunity to further their professional careers."
For further information on this year's UEMOA Tournament, please contact Jerome Lebatard via email at Jerome@scout7.com.
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