Our Story

Growing up in Ghana, our founder Kwaku (Nana Ofori) Effah loved playing soccer, what is arguably the national past time. Unfortunately, the sport at the time and still today, was viewed as something that kids who were not serious about education played and therefore, he was discouraged from playing it. As most kids would, he snuck out and competed in tournaments and played barefoot playing on bad pitches and often sustaining preventable injuries. Fastforward many years, having kids of his own who took an interest in the game, he committed to providing whatever resource he could to support their passion. Having already coached with the Special Olympics program and in Maryland Major Soccer League, Kwaku obtained his youth coaching licenses to become a youth coach. A trip back to Ghana where his daughter donated her cleats to a young man spurred him to organize a drive to collect cleats and other soccer equipment through the club in which he coached, Maryland United Football Club. What was intended to be a one time event led to the formation of Simplicity Football Foundation in July of 2021 after meeting Coach Nti Berko (Walesi Gambo). Kwaku was inspired by the work that this man had taken upon himself to support the youth with zero personal gain but without having adequate support, he was on the verge of quitting. In addition to the supplies received from families from Maryland United FC and the Maryland United Club itself, we were able to provide some financial support to the coach which encouraged him to open up a residential camp. In our second year in 2022, we received assistance from Maryland State Youth Soccer Association in addition to what we continued to receive from the Maryland United FC community. This helped us in extending our reach to other teams including Coach Oppong and Taofiq’s Adansi Royal FC who were also on the verge of quitting as they didn’t receive adequate support for the work they were doing with the youth. In addition to the equipment donation, we were able to provide the necessary support to register all the players and sign them up for a league from which some of the players then got noticed and resulted in some of the success noted below.

As of the writing of this note, there have been several success stories from the work of the foundation including:

  1. One player representing the Ghana U17 National team in the WAFU tournament
  2. One player being called up to the U13 National Team Camp
  3. One player being called up to the U15 National Team Camp who also went to try out for Borussia Dortmund in Germany.
  4. Several students attending Senior Secondary School from the camp that they may not have otherwise have the means to be able to buy the necessary items to be able to attend.

The opportunity to be able to have that level of impact on lives is what prompted the need to acquire a non profit status so that the impact could be bigger with the help of a bigger community. In addition to the work that is being done currently, we have a goal to be able to open a youth and sports center for participants to learn job skills beyond their playing days with our various teams.