BT Football Academy group stuck in Portugal set to return to CT by Sunday

They were in Spain earlier in July, taking part in an international football tournament.

A group of 28 children from the BT Football Academy and their coaches who have been stuck in Lisbon, Portugal, are set to be back in Cape Town by the end of this week, thanks to the generosity of South Africans.

They were in Spain earlier in July, taking part in an international football tournament.

But on the day that they were meant to return to South Africa, they discovered they had no flights booked.

Thanks to the Tracey Lange Cares Initiative, which spearheaded calls for donations, enough funds were raised to bring them home.

They left for Spain on 6 July and spent a week in St Sebastian for the Donosti Cup.

But when it was time to leave on 14 July, they found out they had no flights confirmed to get home.

In an interview on Monday, BT Football Academy owner Brandon Timmy explained why return tickets were not secured: “The issue that we had for our return tickets was that we had our application for our visa’s processed quite late, so we only had appointments that we received from the application centre round about end of May.”

The families of nine children managed to get their children and one of the coaches home this past Saturday.

The remaining 25 children and three coaches have been stuck in Lisbon and reached out on social media for help.

But because of an outpouring of donations, flights have been secured for the group to get home.