Press releases - 2026 June 08
The Presidential Palace welcomed this Monday, June 8, the national U17 and U15 teams, both crowned African champions.
In April, in Harare, the school football cadets went through the CAF African School Championship unbeaten, securing Senegal’s first-ever continental title in this competition. In June, in Rabat, the U17 team claimed a second continental crown, at the end of a campaign in which character made the difference at every decisive moment.
During the ceremony, the players and all members of the technical and administrative staff of both teams were awarded the Médaille Gaïndé de la Performance, in recognition of the honors they have brought to the Nation.
Beyond this distinction, they also received various rewards, amounting to a total package of 179.5 million FCFA for the U17 team and 131.9 million FCFA for the U15 team. The President of the Republic ensured that this gesture was part of a long-term vision focused on education and development. Each champion also receives a school and training scholarship, health insurance coverage for themselves and their families, a digital working tool, and support for their club or home school, alongside a financial package for the player and their family. This is a way of recalling that these children are, first and foremost, students, and that the future promised to them is built as much in classrooms as on football pitches.
At a time when the Lions are completing their preparations in the United States for the World Cup, and as Dakar prepares to host the first-ever Youth Olympic Games organized on African soil, Senegal is experiencing an unprecedented sporting year, driven by a youth that continues to bring honor to the Nation.
Read the full speech of the President of the Republic :
Presidential Palace, Monday, June 8, 2026 — Only the spoken version is authoritative.
Madam Minister of Youth and Sports,
Mr. Minister of National Education,
Ladies and Gentlemen Ministers,
Ladies and Gentlemen members of the Senegalese Football Federation,
Ladies and Gentlemen members of the technical and administrative staff of the U17 and U15 national teams,
Dear African champions,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Presidential Palace has, over the years, welcomed heads of state, scholars, and industry leaders. Rarely have its halls hosted guests so young for such great achievements. You are young very young but you have the merit of having raised Senegal’s flag twice in two months to the very top of Africa.
Welcome home. This house is yours, because it belongs to the Nation that you have set alight in recent weeks through your exploits.
In April, in Harare, you young students engaged in both academic and football training—went through the CAF African School Championship without a single defeat.
You brought Senegal its first-ever title in this competition. Above all, you did it as schoolchildren, and I insist on that word. Your trophy shows that in Senegal, the path to sporting excellence runs through the classroom.
Your trophy shows that the Republic’s school system is capable of developing both minds and sporting talent.
Dear children, I strongly emphasize this dual training. At your age, no one can guarantee a successful professional football career. On the other hand, education remains a certainty a foundation for life.
It is up to you, young footballers, to find the right balance between your studies, training, and competitions, and to make academic discipline the ally of your sporting ambition.
It is also up to you leaders, agents, teachers, and parents to ensure this balance is maintained with consistency, organizing schedules, protecting class hours, private study time, and discipline.
Football must never become a path away from education; it must instead accelerate learning, and serve as a school of character for the future.
I count on you to be the guardians of this balance, so that every success on the field is matched by progress in the classroom, and so that tomorrow our champions are also educated, responsible, and exemplary citizens.
Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me now to address our valiant U17 team, for whom the FIFA U17 World Cup in Qatar 2026 is within reach.
Earlier this month, in Rabat, Morocco, you won a second continental title after a journey that football fans will remember for a long time. Beaten in your opening match, you did not doubt yourselves: you lifted your heads, corrected your mistakes, tightened your ranks. Match after match, you imposed your character, courage, discipline, and solidarity to climb each step toward the title, up to the most unforgiving test of all: penalty shootouts.
Three times in a row, at the moment when everything is decided from eleven meters, in the suspended silence of a stadium, you kept steady hands, precise feet, and calm hearts.
Two titles, two finals won on penalties. I pause on this coincidence, because it is no coincidence. Talent wins matches. Character wins titles. What your two generations have shown Africa is less virtuosity than strength of spirit this composure that cannot be improvised, but is built through daily effort, listening to coaches, respecting rules, and respecting opponents. That is the true lesson of your triumphs, and it goes far beyond football pitches.
That is why I want to associate with this tribute all those whose patient work made these victories possible: the technical staff who believed in these children before Africa celebrated them; the teachers and school principals who reconciled academic demands with competition; the families, who are the first academies of all success; and the national and international private initiatives building football academies across Senegal in partnership with internationally renowned clubs, making sports-education the core of their project.
The Senegalese Football Federation, whose training policy is bearing fruits that the entire continent envies. Be assured that the State will continue to support this momentum, because the National Transformation Agenda Senegal 2050 places youth and sport at the heart of the country’s transformation. Sport is not a peripheral distraction for us. It is a school of sovereignty, a future industry, and a language through which Senegal speaks to the world.
Dear champions, allow me now to speak to you as a father speaks to his sons.
You are fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old, and already Africa knows your names. This is a tremendous honor—but also a test, perhaps more difficult than a penalty shootout. Early fame has cost more talents than all defeats combined.
So keep a cool head, as you did in Harare and Rabat. Continue your studies with the same seriousness as your training. Listen to those who have guided you so far. To the U17 players, some of whom are no longer in school, I ask your parents, clubs, and the Federation to join forces to help you return to education or enter vocational training, while continuing your ambition in football.
And remember this, which applies both to sport and to life: a champion is recognized as much by how he wins as by his trophies. True victory is humble. It salutes the opponent, honors its hosts, and carries triumph with the same dignity required in defeat. Wherever you go, on every field in the world, every gesture of yours will speak on behalf of Senegal. Make sure that language always reflects elegance, gratitude, and respect. That is how great sporting nations are measured and how I want ours to be recognized.
Because your story is only just beginning. In November, our U17s will defend Senegal’s colors at the FIFA U17 World Cup in Qatar. In a few months, Dakar will host the Youth Olympic Games, the first Olympic Games ever organized on African soil. Our country is living through an unprecedented sporting year. You are its first architects.
Dear children of Senegal, you have made our flag fly at the summit of Africa. You have made our neighborhoods, villages, and schools sing. You have reminded us all that this country, thanks to its youth, knows no unreachable summit.
On behalf of a grateful Nation, I say thank you. I say well done. And above all, I say: keep going!
Long live the youth of Senegal,
Long live the Republic,
Long live Senegal.