The Backroom Staff - Founder: Angel Salt

Founder: Angel

Creating in football - for pros and the community

The phrase, ‘you can just do things’ has become synonymous with the modern entrepreneurial world - and few people embody this more than Angel Salt. A promising footballer in his own right, he quickly realized that a ‘normal office job’ wasn’t for him and got into coaching. Since then, he’s been creating and willing things into existence through his creativity, enthusiasm and ability to ‘just do things’.

A few extra weekend training sessions has grown into F8ballers Africa, a full fledged academy with over 200 players that’s already competing with Nigeria’s top clubs to develop the next elite talents. Not satisfied with ‘just’ his academy, Angel set up the Angel Salt Foundation, where he runs tons of unique, community driven footbal events around Lagos.

In this interview, Angel shares his motivation - and vision - behind his projects - from building professional pathways for top talents to using football as a vehicle for education, empowerment and social change.

The interview has been condensed and lightly edited for grammar and clarity. 

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[ Background ]

I'm from Lagos, Nigeria. Growing up here, football is a part of the culture, it’s the way we communicate and bond as young people. That’s the kind of system I grew up in. Playing football in school, in academies, with friends - you form a bond with football. That’s how I understood life and interacted with society. You come back from school and you go play with your friends, you have fun together, then you begin to support clubs and have interactions that are competitive. So, you’re not living in your own world, you are living in the world with other people and interacting through football and sports.

Years later, I wanted to be a professional football player. That came with its own challenges and struggles. There are people who are trying to take advantage of your passion, of your dreams. One or two things happened that we might talk about down the line, it’s a big influence on the work I do.

I went to the University of Lagos and played for my university - I’m in the Hall of Fame! When I came out of school, I had the option to do a normal job - which I did for a couple of months, but I discovered that I wanted to focus on football.

I learned a bit of marketing - I wanted to get an IT skill - and looked at the media space. Then I went to a coaching school and got my certification. I began to identify gaps in society. Why do these talented players not get opportunities?

So, I said, ‘okay, I know what I'm gonna do, we’re gonna create a platform where the talented players can get attention early enough so they can get to where they’re supposed to be.’

[ Who are these people who are getting left behind? ]

Well, I'm one of those.

The first challenge here is the challenge of balancing football with education. A lot of players can’t do both and get left behind.

A lot of them are very talented but in disadvantaged communities. Just last week, I went to shoot a video of one of my players and it took me, let’s say, about 1,500 Naira (€0.88) to go from my house to his house. That’s for a one way trip. I asked him how he comes to the stadium for practice from here and he said he treks. So, I’m like okay, let’s trek - after 10 minutes, I knew we were still far away, I told him, ‘hold up, let’s take the bus please, because we have to go for training!’ Now, this boy, he has to spend so much time walking - an hour just to come to training. These kinds of people are left behind because they can’t afford it.

The next set of people are girls. In this society, girls are not really given the opportunity. One of my top priorities is trying to respond to the call for girls in football.

So, when you look at those three categories - the boys trying to accommodate their education with football, the players in the poor areas, in the marginalized communities and the girls - in all of my projects I try to capture these three sets of people.

I have what I call FootEd - football plus education. My football environment encourages educational pursuits. I have my players who are in universities, they are doing very well. We check up on them, we tell them, don't worry, focus on your studies, you can still play football.

Then you have the ones that are coming from far away, from other states, we put them in accommodation, feed them and clothe them. We ensure these are very, very special talents. I just got some new mattresses from a company to put in the accommodation for those players!

Then, I started training girls of 2, 3, 4, 5, years old. I believe that girls have to start kicking a ball very early so that when they are 10, 11, they can compete as best as possible. All of my girls compete with the boys and are strong!

So, those are my three core areas of people that I feel are neglected and need to be supported with the work I do.

[ Today, you’re running both the F8ballers Academy and the Angel Salt Foundation - which came first? ]

I started with the academy. So, I was working in a media firm, and when I left, I went into the coaching school. For two years, I was there and after my first 3 months, I started the football academy. I decided I would coach kids for free on Saturdays while I was in school.

We started at the back of a football field, just teaching techniques and engaging kids. I used to buy them drinks and snacks every weekend - that was the attraction! More and more kids started joining. I wanted to make this bigger, I wanted to get jerseys. I spoke to the parents and we started having a monthly contribution to keep the academy going. We moved to a bigger pitch and kept growing. The parents of the kids I train, the ones that are well-to-do, they are the ones supporting the work we do at F8ballers.

Then, later on down the line, during or just after the lockdown in 2021, I felt the need to start a foundation. If F8ballers is for the players that are under my influence, then the foundation will cater to players that are in other football teams and I started the Angel Salt Foundation.

I started many projects and competitions. This year, I’ve hosted the Champs Cup, The Big Sunday Game and I’m about to host the WakaPass Christmas football party - I’m hoping to get some donors to help me because I’m going to be catering for over 5,000 players across two days!

[ Do you have co-founders or a team to help you with these events? ]

Yes, there’s a mix of people helping me. There are young people who I was able to convince to come on board as volunteers. One day, when I have enough funds, I’d like to set up an office and have people who can work there full-time because the work we do is full-time work!

So, I have a lot of volunteers and my friends and former teammates - some of them who are coaching now are on board. I also have a group of 12 people that I work with across the year who are the ‘project managers’ for each of these projects, they are in charge.

We all come together every Monday and talk about the progress we’re making, the plans we have and all these kinds of things. It’s an amazing team that I hope I can scale it so they can one day work in an office. When that time comes, we’re going to move from Nigeria to all of Africa, we’re going to go to Zimbabwe, to Malawi, to Ghana, to Togo, everywhere, because it’s an African dream.

[ Why did you decide to start all these different projects at once? How do you decide which to try? ]

I realized that a lot of the football academies and the coaches around us need some form of education. Education on the FIFA standards and best practices in football, but also about legal education and education about life skills, soft skills, drug abuse and the SD Goals, for example.

I visit football teams around Lagos, especially the ones in the disadvantaged communities. I go with a bag of food, with snacks and educational materials. I read biographies, I talk about the SD Goals and about balancing education and football. I talk about all sorts of life skills and soft skills, discipline, time management, etc because these are the things I tell my players. So, I go out there, I reach out to them, I play with them, we play together, we sing, we dance and I tell them to play for their coaches, I give them a ball and so on.

My foundation gives me the opportunity to raise a community outside of just the people in my team.

I have about 10 projects now. So, F8ballers is the institution of learning football - that’s the academy, and then I have the rest of my projects through the Angel Salt Foundation that I run throughout the year.

For example, I started the Champs Corp two years ago. When I started, I wanted to have a monthly football festival where F8ballers and 3 other football teams come together and play for a day. I tried it for 3 months and the logistics became too much, I couldn’t do it! So, in 2024, I said I was going to do it every quarter instead and ran it successfully 4 times. Now, in 2025, I turned it into a Children’s Day event. So, I went from every month to every quarter to now, an annual event - every May we’re going to have the Champs Cup and make it really big.

The Big Sunday Game is for the older age groups, like 16, 17, 18, those are the players that can be scouted. Now, we’re trying to turn it into a league where we can have scouts and videos and statistics on the scouting platforms and hopefully it can lead to players being discovered and new opportunities.

Then, Pass and Pasta - I came up with this one day because passing is football's most basic skill and pasta is a footballer's most basic meal. I made a festival where children come and make 5,000 passes in 90 minutes and we have pasta and chicken at the end of the day. That was it. Literally! I reached out to a kitchen and got them to supply the food and it was a lot of fun.

I just launched Tattered Boots because a lot of players don’t have boots to play in, so I’m trying to see how I can get donations of boots from across the world and give these to players every now and then.

Very soon, on Boxing Day (26th of December) and the day after, we’re going to bring all these teams for a festival - WakaPass - where they will dance, have a competition, eat rice and chicken, have drinks and get gifts. Some players are going to get football boots that they can use to play next year.

It’s a Christmas football event because, 3 years ago - on the 26th of December - we were having WakaPass for the second time and I asked the players, ‘how was Christmas yesterday?’ and they were like, ‘we didn’t have Christmas’. They didn’t have rice or chicken or drinks, they just went to play football. So, I decided to turn this into a Christmas football party. They come to play football and there’s very loud music, food, drinks and gifts. It’s a lot of fun.

Our main goal is to raise a community of young players who are living right and thinking right - the leaders of our future. Our second goal is to discover some of the best talents. We’re going to be hosting 64 football teams, 20 players each, that’s over 1,000 players. You can imagine we might be able to discover at least 10 players that could be the next Osimhen, the next Ndidi, the next Sadio Mané or Mbappé!

I try to structure the events around the year, for example, Pass and Pasta is a quarterly thing. Champs Cup is a Children’s Day event. WakaPass is an end of year event and some, like Tattered Boots, are ongoing, where if I get 20 boots, I give out 20 boots - so we’ve spaced them out.

[ How many players are at F8ballers now? ]

We have over 200 players across about 10 categories. We teach kids aged 2 to 3, 4 to 5, 6 to 7, 8 to 9, 10 to 11, and all the way up like that. Then, we have some players that are very intelligent, very good and they might play in a higher category. My first guys are playing in the Nigerian league system for the first time.

[ You mentioned your big focus on education and opportunity, but it sounds like one of your other goals is to produce professional players. Can you talk about the pipeline or the pathways that exist for players like those in your academy to play professionally? ]

Yes, so we currently explore 4 pathways.

I have a relationship with many of the teams around us that have contacts. Sometimes I help players go there. Even though my team is more organized and more competitive, I sometimes have to say - just go there, because they have the contacts. Perhaps you’ll be discovered there. I have 4 or 5 players who are in this situation now.

Next - The Big Sunday Game that we host, I’m trying to get a partnership with Wyscout and all those scouting platforms. We will be having this as a monthly event with more and more players. We can have their statistics and data on Wyscout, for example, and they can be discovered by scouts.

Number 3, we just finished our website. I'm hoping to send out hundreds of emails to clubs across Europe, showing them the work we are doing and that we are genuine. I will start writing the stories of these guys on the website so they can be discovered. I also want to create some kind of direct contact with teams around Africa and perhaps set up partnerships with these teams. I’ll go into the hinterlands and get all the best players out, build this pipeline and make it a smooth transition.

I’m also trying to work with one or two agents and establish relationships with the Nigerian league teams too. I have a player going to Sporting Lagos this week. If I can push them into those teams, they can gain experience and exposure.

The most important thing is for the players to be going in the right way. I hope I’m able to have direct contact with more clubs, or a very big agent, that can help us.

[ You have a background in poetry and writing - has this been helpful in your roles in football? ]

Yes, I studied the English language and literature at university - I'm a pretty writer and I perform poetry. Going forward, one of the things I want to do is tell a lot of stories about all these kids that I work with. I'll be exploring from spoken word to writing and trying to tell stories that can get brands to see the kind of impact we're making, and maybe also see the problems that we can solve together.

I'm gonna use storytelling as a tool to get sponsors for the academy and our projects. The kinds of stories we have to tell are amazing. For example, this player we spoke about walking to training, his name is Goodluck Frank, and his father has been sick for 3 years, he’s in the village and his mom is working so hard, week in, week out to ensure that this boy goes to school and everything. When I got to the house, I was really emotional - this is where this boy comes from and when you see him on the field, he’s really, really good and so beautiful to watch.

These are the kinds of stories we have to tell now.

[ What does success look like in 5 or 10 years? ]

Three things, I would say.

One, I want to have a very high network and database of footballers in Africa. I want to become known across the continent and across the globe as the guy who is rooting for young players, creating engagement, creating pathways and creating opportunities for them, for African kids, with football and sports.

Number two, I’d love to have 5 to 10 players from my academy already playing at the top level. Those success stories are going to give hope to a lot of other kids and show it’s possible - this also leads to my third point.

One day, I want these football projects to run in a place I call the City of Champions - it’s an imaginary city in my head. It's a place where football will happen 24/7 for kids. There will be accommodation, a school, gyms, a world class football facility. Until I accomplish that, I've not succeeded. My plans are to be able to house lots of these players, train them, support them in football, academics and vocation - while they are playing football, they will be learning skills, learning about IT, about AI, about business, all of these skills that might help them in their life.

I’m hoping I can find people who can fund it - and if not, it’s fine, if the players I’m working with succeed, we will be able to fund it and do what we have to do. What Right to Dream is doing in Ghana and Beyond Limits is doing in Nigeria is amazing, they have provided a very good template. That’s our long-term goal.

[ How can people support you and your work? ]

Well, donations, referrals, platforms like this, I don’t know who will see it, but having places to share my work and goals are great.

By the end of this month, we’ll open an official account for the foundation, so that people can easily donate. I’m working on a website for the foundation that will be ready soon as well, so people can see the work we do, the interventions we do and that we’re doing something worthy and need funds to continue.

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