Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Colombo: The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has organised an AFC Cup Club Licensing Workshop for Premier League clubs in the capital of Sri Lanka on Thursday.
The workshop was a follow-up to the AFC Cup CLub Licensing Workshop organised organised by AFC for all AFC Cup participating countries, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on January 20, 2017. Similar to the AFC Champions League, it is now mandatory for clubs to be licensed to participate in the AFC Cup and the Football Federation of Sri Lanka (FFSL) is keen to introduce and implement the AFC Cup Club Licensing and FFSL Club Licensing Regulations from the 2017 season onwards.
FFSL President Anura De Silva, who attended the workshop, said: “Club licensing is the need of the hour in Sri Lanka. We have to develop our clubs and leagues to match the basic prerequisite of other Member Associations (MA) and countries in AFC club competitions.”
Eighteen clubs from the FFSL Premier League attended the workshop, which was divided into two sections. The first presentation was given by FFSL CEO and Club Licensing Manager Jaswar Umar who informed them on the importance of club licensing, processes and criteria involved at an administration level.
In the second section, the floor was opened to the clubs for discussion to address all queries, issues and challenges they might face during the implementation process. Several issues were raised and counsel was given by AFC and FFSL officials.
Thereafter, Umar gave a brief demonstration on the Club Licensing Administration System (CLAS). CLAS is an innovative online platform allowing clubs to comply with the AFC club licensing criteria and MAs are benefitted by the transparency and administrative control of national club licensing.
FFSL has set definitive timelines for the clubs to fulfill the criteria. The first call to action for the clubs is to appoint a full time CEO, General Manager or General Secretary in the clubs by February 10, 2017, with a CLAS training session to be conducted for each club once the appointments have been made. All the clubs are positive in fulfilling the criteria within the stipulated timelines.
Stuart Larman, AFC Head of MA Development, said: “AFC always stresses that club licensing is not only a regulatory tool, but also a development tool. AFC will continue to actively be involved and assist FFSL and the clubs to implement the regulations successfully in 2017.
“Also, AFC through it's League Development Programme will assist the clubs by conducting a series of workshops for the media, security, marketing and other club development aspects once the regulations are successfully implemented by the clubs.”
Photo: AFC