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| Calendar of Events |
| 13/11/2008 |
Organising Committee for AFC Youth Competitions
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| 20/11/2008 |
Women's Committee |
| 20/11/2008 |
AFC Women's Awards Night 2008 |
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| Vision Asia |
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| Festival first for girls’ game |
KUALA LUMPUR: The women’s game in the continent got a shot in the arm with the launch of the first AFC U-13 Girls’ Festival of Football this year.
The festival provided aspiring footballers an opportunity to play, enjoy and gain experience at an international level besides creating a platform for grassroots coach and referees education.
A total of 154 players from seven countries – hosts Vietnam, China, India, Japan, Korea Republic, Myanmar, and Singapore - took part in the festival at Ho Chi Minh City’s Thanh Long Sports Complex.
Seven out of nine aspiring coaches cleared the AFC ‘C’ Certificate Coaching Course while 14 aspiring referees took part in the referees’ course and AFC Referees’ Talent Acceleration Programme.
Japanese official Yoko Imaseki said: “I had been to two boys’ festivals before but this is an excellent step taken by AFC to introduce a festival for girls.”
“I hope that more teams will take part in the girls' festival in the future, including strong teams like Australia and DPR Korea,” she added.
AFC Elite Coach Instructor Chan Shuk Chi said: “Coaching is difficult because of language issues but festivals help the participants because they need to use more than one way to communicate with their players.”
Korea’s Hwang I-sak, who took part in the referees programme, felt that the festival gave an opportunity to meet and interact with people from different cultures.
“The festival provided solid grounding in the fundamentals every young match official needs,” she said.
The players were an excited lot and enjoyed the drills, matches and camaraderie.
Chinese player Lei Rui said: “I started playing football only last year but the festival was a good learning experience for me.”
“I made many new friends and enjoyed the days in the festival.”
Vietnam’s Pham Thi Nga said: “I was happy to be part of this festival as I learnt new things everyday during the festival.”
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