| Fadhil Yunus |
BRUNEI Darussalam will be the hosting the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Under-14 Regional Festival of Football 2016 for the second time following its success from last year which will kick off from the 26th until 30th July 2016.
Sanctioned and supported by AFC and organised by the National Football Association of Brunei Darussalam (NFABD), a total of 180 young players, 40 team officials, more than 150 committee members and volunteers have been expected to attend the festival.
A total of 20 matches are scheduled to take place which will see 10 participating countries from the Asean region competes, namely Brunei Darussalam as host nation, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor Leste and Vietnam.
Brunei Darussalam will kick off against Myanmar shortly after the opening ceremony while the match between the host nation and Thailand will mark the conclusion of the regional festival.
The matches will be contested at the Track and Field Complex and the Berakas Sports Complex.
In the build-up to the event, a referee preparatory course was held and attended by 15 participants from 9 participating countries. Upon completion of the preparatory course, these young referees will then be taking charge of the matches during the festival.
In addition, a corporate social responsibility campaign will involve awareness campaign for both the local community and participating players as well as a one-day seminar to be conducted by an AFC representative, an outreach programme NFABD Open House Hari Raya for players and stakeholders.
Brunei U-14 players passing around health awareness pamphlets. – KHAIRIL HASSAN
The General Secretary of NFABD, Pengiran Haji Mohiddin bin Pengiran Haji Badarudin noted that the corporate social responsibility campaign was an initiative by the AFC whereby an official will give a lecture themed towards holistic development through social responsibility.
Asked about the readiness of the Under-14 team, Acting Competition Director of NFABD Dayem Haji Ali highlighted that preparations have taken place geared towards the festival.
“This under-14 team which is coached by Stephen Ng have been training for the last few months in order for the team to perform during the festival”, he said during a press conference at the Orchid Garden Hotel yesterday.
“The training organised by the coach and NFABD demonstrates that the players are very close to being fully prepared whereby we have friendly games outside Brunei which is in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah.”
The under-14 team played two teams from the area namely the under-15 and the under-18 team and even though they lost 1-0 on both occasions it suggested encouraging results.
The football team have also been training on a regular basis which highlighted their readiness of competing in the festival.
Dayem added that the festival supports AFC’s call to provide the participants more playing time.
Brunei received the AFC Grassroots Award for Aspiring Member Association during the first AFC Grassroots Conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and NFABD stressed the continuity of developing football at the grassroots level.
Every district have their own Centre of Excellence (CoE) in order to come up with the grassroots level and the stream of under 13, 14, 15 and 17s attend training according to the NFABD plan.
Meanwhile, the Assistant General Secretary of NFABD, Pengiran Mohd Amirrizal bin Pengiran Haji Mahmud underlined the current initiatives of stepping up grassroots football.
“With NFABD being a new association in football, we have a lot of initiatives when it comes to development football and more importantly on the grassroots level that has given Brunei on the spotlight in terms of developing youth in the hope to build football as a number one sport in Brunei and also to keep up with the levels of other countries in the region”, the assistant general secretary said.
“With all the new initiatives faced by the NFABD and the Football Development Department, with the assistance of AFC and FIFA, we have managed to implement and undergo a lot of grassroots projects that has been assisted and monitored by FIFA”.
“That is why the award was given to Brunei even though there has been a few countries being nominated. Because of the initiatives and the efforts that have been done, that has given Brunei and NFABD as a whole the green light to achieve the award within such short span of time”, he added.
The assistant general secretary added that this has given AFC and FIFA the confidence for the second U-14 Regional Festival of Football to be hosted by Brunei.
“All this has been hard work by those involving Brunei football especially under the leadership of our President. This has been a good start and hopefully this will be prolonged and fruitful in the long run”.
“In the long run, with consistent training and a lot of coaches and courses that have been undertaken in terms of refereeing, coaches, that has been a package and this have given us a good boost in the direction of football in Brunei Darussalam”, he concluded.
Asked about the target of the under-14 team, Dayem said that it is their intention to encourage the young players to be given more playing time so that they can observe them to be the future of Brunei for the next few years.
The second target relates to the coaches, match officials and referees gaining more valuable knowledge on what they can do and learn during the festival.
The Acting Deputy President of NFABD, Haji Madli bin Mohamad Yusuf expressed his hopes in his brief concluding remarks that the festival will run smoothly.
There will be no points system meaning that the focus will be entirely on fair play.
The post Brunei to host AFC U-14 Regional Festival of Football appeared first on Borneo Bulletin Online.