Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Kuala Lumpur: The AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011 Conference kicked off in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday which will pave the way for more spectacular performances of future national teams and competitions.
The conference is attended by close to 100 participants who are AFC Technical Committee Members, AFC Technical Study Group Panel Members, coaches from Member Associations and AFC Project Future Batches 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 coaches.
Officially opening the conference, the first ever conference for an Asian Cup, AFC General Secretary Dato’ Alex Soosay is confident that the event will fully cover the latest Asian Cup.
“The AFC Asian Cup Qatar 2011 in Doha was a fantastic and magnificent event. The 2011 edition of the championship is the jewel of the crown and I’m sure that the next few days in the conference will go through the history and success of our Asian Cup,” said Dato’ Alex.
“I spent two months in Doha and I call tell you from personal experience the nitty gritty of organising an Asian Cup today. We can see that in Qatar we have scored many goals on and off the field and we have made tremendous achievements.
“Our member association Qatar will also host the World Cup 2022 which demonstrates our ability to host the highest football competitions.
“In the next two days, you will re-experience the level of teams and competition, including the top four nations -- Japan, Australia, Korea republic and Uzbekistan -- in the Asian Cup 2011, emerging nations like Syria, Jordan and Iraq and not to forget India which had shown strong determination to succeed.”
Dato’ Alex has hoped that the conference will be able to achieve its goals and the participants will benefit from it, go back to their member associations and begin their work.
“The Asian Cup was full of passion, determination and energy and here you are going to re-experience the wonderful feelings, lots of memories, technical details, friendship, interaction and the wonderful gathering,” Dato’ Alex said.
“I hope you will make new friends who are experts who will share with you what they have learned and they will also learn from you.
“I hope from this conference you will be able to build your teams or national teams so that in future championships including the Asian Cup 2015 we will see something better and more exciting.”
The 2011 Asian Cup has proven to be the most successful national competition ever staged by the AFC and the conference aims to discuss technical and playing trends in Asia, competition format and player development bench-marked against international standards for better championships in the future.