March 25 – The Somali Football Federation (SFF) has embarked on series of assessments of facilities in its regional states with surveys in Jubbaland (Waamo Stadium pictured) and South West sate highlighting funding priorities.
The SFF was recently criticised for its lack of transparency over use of FIFA development money allocated for the women’s game in the country. FIFA is the sole source of the SFA’s money with the Somali government providing no support for the game.
SFF president Abdiqani Said Arab said that the second phase of the regional assessments will focus onPuntland, Gal-Mudug and Hir-Shabelle.
“In April, we are planning to carry out surveys in those three states as part of our football development assessment programs for all regions and based on our findings, we will then be able to have full understanding on what we have to do and where we are to target one after the other,” said Abdiqani.
“According to the development programs approved by the executive committee in February, the development programs set for regions include, the renovation of football facilities and the installation of artificial turf on a number of grounds and on top of that capacity building activities including refereeing, coaching and football administration courses will be organized in all regions in 2019.”
The surveys conducted found both a lack of facilities, or incomplete facilities as well as a lack of training programmes for coaches and officials.
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