Tue, 30 Nov, -0001
Kuala Lumpur: The six-day FIFA Futuro III Grassroots Instructors’ Course for Asean and East Asia Region concluded on Saturday in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur with the participants vowing to use the knowledge gained in the seminar back in their member associations.
The course, jointly organised by FIFA, AFC and the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM), was participated by 18 grassroots instructors from the region.
“The course was very interesting and it was nice to come back to the fundamental rules of football in last six days,” representative of the participants Gary White – a representative of Guam, said.
“The importance of grassroots football is very simple, if we don’t have grassroots football in place, we won’t have a big pool of players for the national team.
AFC’s Deputy General Secretary Windsor John stressed on the need of patience and investment for success.
“There is no shortcut to success so we need to focus on the basics of grassroot football which is an important element to succeed,” said Windsor.
“Many of us want overnight success in football but without proper investment in grassroots and without being patient, we won’t achieve. The top countries around the world are top because of their solid foundation.
“Spread the learning back to the instructors and coaches at your respective member associations as there are several people from your country who did not make it here in Kuala Lumpur,” Windsor advised the participants.
FAM Vice-President Dato’ Afandi Hamzah declared FAM’s willingness to support educational courses in football.
“FAM remains supportive to all the education programmes at all levels,” he stated.
“We (FAM) are also putting lots of efforts in grassroots football and it seems now we are reaping benefit from our investment,” he added by mentioning Malaysia’s 2-0 win over Korea Republic in the AFC U-16 Championship 2014 qualifiers on Friday.