FIFA,the world football body, will be involved in development of the sport at school level in Malaysia from next year.
The implementation of the Fifa Football for Schools programme in Malaysian schools will help produce more young players with good basic skill.
Under the Fifa programme, primary school teachers will be given online access to mobile apps which have all the required tools to teach football to students.
It is part of Fifa’s strategic roadmap Fifa 2.0: The Vision for the Future. The goal of the programme is to contribute to the development of football at national level while placing it at the service of local communities.
To implement the innovative programme, Fifa Technical Development Services Programme Manager Philip Zimmermann of Germany was in Kuala Lumpur yesterday for a three-day workshop on the Fifa Football for Schools programme.
Officials and technical directors from 12 Asean countries came to attend the new programme.
Zimmermann said he sees the programme as a great new initiative by Fifa to inculcate football into young children as well as helping them learn other important life skills.
‘The Fifa Football for Schools programme will officially be launched in the spring of 2020,” he said yesterday.’
Zimmermann said it is a programme initiated by Fifa president Gianni Infantino that incorporates football development into education for schoolchildren.
‘It’s a programme that uses football as a hook to get children involved in schools to play football but more importantly to teach life skills through football.
‘One of the things that we will provide not only for the FA of Malaysia but also to our 118 member associations is the Football for Schools app.
‘It’s a mobile application that has all the football sessions as well as the life skills sessions linked to it.
‘Even for physical education teachers or other teachers that might not have any experience on running such sessions, they can easily understand how to do so and can include this into their curricular or extra-curricular activities.’
Under the programme, Fifa will also be making use of their partnership with sport equipment maker adidas to provide balls to the countries involved. Eleven million balls are planned for production to be distributed.
The Fifa programme aims to reach out to 700 million boys and girls worldwide with Southeast Asia being one of the main areas of focus with 10 per cent of the balls set to be allocated to this region.
The Fifa programme is set to be a boost for Malaysian football development which has long cried out for a more sustainable and systematic approach at grassroots level, especially in schools.
Hopefully, with Fifa playing a role in Malaysian schools, this will lead to the availability of more players of calibre for the national team.