Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Dushanbe: Tajikistan Football Federation Vice-President Valeriy Toursunov has hailed AFC for its assistance to help professionalise football further in the Central Asian nation.
Speaking at the end of a seven-day inspection visit by the AFC Professional Football Project delegation, Toursunov said:
“The AFC development visit was very productive and a helpful one to Tajik football. The AFC delegations did an impressive job and the result of their visit is remarkable for us.
“We should thank the Asian Football Confederation for their assistance and hope this support is continued in the future.”
The task force led by AFC Professional Football Project Head Kim Steve visited 12 clubs in various cities to share with them the direction to establish a professional football league.
Tajikistan is a power house in the AFC Challenge Cup and won the first tournament title in 2006. Tajikistan clubs also showed a high-level performance at the AFC President’s Cup and clinched three titles in 2005, 2008 and 2009. Tajikistan was also one of the AFC representatives in FIFA U-17 World Cup 2007 in Korea Republic.
On the last day of the inspection, Kim has outlined during a workshop the strengths and area of improvements for Tajikistan professional football.
Kim said: “We have identified that there is high popularity of football, strong support from the local government, strong commitment of the Member Association to developing professional football and government’s investment on clubs’ facilities.
“We have also noted major areas of improvement such as poor club facilities, lack of qualified personnel in the League and clubs, match operations (competition, security and media), lack of marketing programmes, clubs’ overreliance on government subsidies, lack of TV coverage of the domestic League, challenges in logistics and insufficient certified coaches and youth development programmes.
"However, the clubs are willing to hire professional people or educate their officials and AFC may need to keep continuing its assistance.
“I trust that our inspection has provided helpful feedback to the MA and clubs so that they can efficiently allocate their resources for further development of their football facilities,” concluded Kim.