THREE of Bermuda's best young female football players will leave the island next week bound for the Victory Christian Academy in Long Island, New York. There they will be able to play in the top school division as well as get a first-class education.

All three girls ¿ Akilah Berkeley-Bremar, Donte Allen and Kyla Ramatar ¿ play for Devonshire Cougars and while their coach Paulos knows it will be tough to replace them, he also knows that this is a great opportunity for the teenagers, an opportunity not to be missed.

"They all play for the national team as well," said Paulos yesterday. "They are very promising girls. It's going to be tough to see them leave but it is great for them. They will get good exposure and a different culture and that will be good for them ¿ and they all can certainly play. The education will be great for them."

Paulos has seen other older girls come back from college in the US and rejoin with Cougars and said: "The ones who have come back from college have always brought something back to the table ¿ they have been a big help to the team. These girls are younger. And being that age in Bermuda (15-16) is hard and that is why I am happy they are going ¿ for all sorts of reasons. I know I am going to be stretched but I have been stretched before. I will just have to recruit some more younger players."

The Victory Christian Academy was founded by Pastor Anthony Seaton, a minister of 23 years with a Masters in Counseling, and his wife Barbara Seaton, a ten-year veteran teacher of learning disabled children at the Middle Country School District.

Pastor Seaton himself was recruited over 30 years ago to play football for a US college from his native Trinidad and has made sports a big part of the academy which started up in 1996.

They used to play in the Long Island Junior Soccer League but now the club have moved up and play in the Premier league against schools from all over the north east coast of the US.

Bermudian Rory Suber helped facilitate the girls' move to the academy and told the Mid-Ocean News: "In February Pastor Seaton came to Bermuda to see the talent of the girl players. He called me and asked if I knew any. I told him no, but I could direct him to someone who did. We found out the girls squad were training on Saturday so we went and watched the session. This was after we had a meeting with a couple of BFA officials and presented the programme to which they were impressed.

"At the training session I decided to video the seven-a-side game and the young ladies were on their best behaviour and showed their various skills."

After the session Pastor Seaton met the coach and a meeting was set up for the players and parents. In the end 15 players and their parents showed up and three girls were serious about playing overseas for the academy.

"We started talking about how to get them into the school in September," said Suber.

Pastor Seaton returned to Bermuda with Pastor Neville Zuill who is originally from the island. Pastor Zuill then called his cousin Richard Calderon who is heavily involved with football in Bermuda as part of the Bermuda Football Foundation and has helped young players get scholarships abroad.

"Another meeting was set up earlier this month and we had officials from different clubs from across the island buy into the vision of the school and have offered to help in getting other young girls into the school."

Now Suber said that a foundation ¿ the VAC Foundation ¿ is being set up to help sponsor the girls to attend the school.

Pastor Seaton said: "I am from Trinidad and in 1970 I was able to get a scholarship (to college in the US) to play soccer.

"We want to give back and we have had some kids from Trinidad on scholarships. We have been successful in developing a school and we are fortunate to have the entire congregation support the programme. This past year was a very, very successful year for us ¿ this year was our first graduating class and we managed to get six kids on soccer scholarships to colleges in the US."

Nor surprisingly a number of the players at the academy are from Trinidad.

Pastor Zuill said: "I have been with Pastor Seaton for many years and after seeing how his programme worked for these kids (from Trinidad) I asked if it was possible if we could do this for some Bermuda kids so we came down a couple times and watched them play."

For more information call Suber at 334-9314.