The Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) program for child welfare, youth empowerment through football, education and gender equality will be implemented in Mauritania, Malawi and Djibouti.
“Helping young people acquire practical skills that will (also) help them find employment outside football” is the aim of the program, which is run jointly with the ‘Agence Francaise de Developpement’ (AFD).
“This collaboration, which follows on from the first agreement signed in the presence of President Emmanuel Macron in 2019 and the commitments of the New Africa-France Summit, bears witness to our shared desire to make soccer a gas pedal of solidarity investments. With FIFA, we are forming a team on the field of impact to make soccer a vector for sustainable development, for young people and in the service of gender equality, education and child protection,” said Remy Rioux, Chief Executive Officer of AFD Group, in a statement sent to
APA Thursday.
The member associations in Mauritania, Malawi and Djibouti will benefit in particular from the support of the NGO PLAY International and the Senegal-based Diambars Institute, to “prepare academy players to become future citizens, knowing that only a tiny fraction of them will become professional footballers, to broaden their economic and professional horizons through the round ball, to empower them and ensure their employability.”
According to Gelson Fernandes, FIFA’s Director of Member Associations for Africa, “football can provide many useful life skills, such as discipline, passion and commitment.” With this in mind, he stressed to “member associations that they have a responsibility to develop football and provide opportunities for the children, women and men of their countries.”
The all-inclusive academies project is also linked to FIFA’s Talent Development Program, which aims to help member associations identify and train young players, and the FIFA Guardians program, which provides a framework to help the 211 member associations prevent any risk of harm to children in soccer and respond appropriately.
President of the Djibouti Football Federation, Souleiman Hassan Waberi thanked FIFA for “its support in building an academy as part of the Forward program,” before asserting that “the initiative will now ensure that it works so that we can train our best talent, but also create a safer environment, provide an educational pathway and promote gender equality.”
For his part, Walter Nyamilandu, head of the Malawian Football Federation, stressed that “the creation of an academy is a game-changer for Malawian soccer,” adding that “the benefits of this project are enormous, as it will transform the lives of our players on a social and economic level.”
For his part, Ahmed Yahya, President of the Mauritanian Football Association, promised to “work hard to ensure that (his country’s) academy is both a platform for training young players and a model for all those, on the continent or elsewhere, who want to develop their football in a scientific, precise, gradual and well-thought manner.”
ID/ac/fss/APA