By Emmanuel Adigwe
West Ham United have confirmed that Nigeria’s U-17 goalkeeper, Daniel Jinadu, who is an academy product for the club, has been offered his first professional contract.
Aside from Jinadu, other players that signed a professional contract with the club include: Keenan Appiah-Forson, Harrison Ashby, Sam Caiger, Dan Chesters, Will Greenidge and Joshua Okotcha.
Academy manager, Ricky Martin, Reacting to this development, congratulated the players saying that they deserve the contract.
Martin said: “This is a tremendous achievement. All our young players aspire to be offered a professional contract, and these players have all deservedly been rewarded for their efforts and development to date.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank Kevin Keen, Mark Phillips and Billy Lepine, the three coaches for the U18s who have worked with these players all season and given them all the support and guidance they’ve required.
“These players are still progressing, and fully deserve the opportunity to move into the next stage of their development with the U23 squad. They have shown resilience, determination and dedication so far, so as long as they keep those traits up, they will give themselves every opportunity to progress further in the future.”
Jinadu also expressed happiness over this development as he took to his Instagram account to express his joy.
He wrote: “Dream come true and proud moment for me and my family signing my first professional contract at West Ham. The hard work continues! All the glory to God!”