June 28 – The German Football Association (DFB) and Australian Football Federation (FFA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Sochi covering joint endeavours in football development.
The agreement which will run until 2019 was agreed by DFB President Reinhard Grindel and Secretary General Dr. Friedrich Curtius, the Australian Football Federation (FFA) President Steven Lowy and Secretary General David Gallop.
According to the DFB: “A novelty of the cooperation with the FFA is the joint commitment to ‘Sport for Development’ in Asia, especially in Southeast Asia. In this area, the DFB has already cooperated with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and its main contractor, the German Association for International Cooperation (GIZ). Currently, DFB, BMZ and GIZ are active in seven partner countries: Afghanistan, Brazil, Jordan, Colombia, Mozambique, Namibia (in cooperation with FIFA) and the Palestinian Territories.”
The agreement is the first the DFB has agreed with another football association over “Sport for Development” and “core elements of the cooperation concern technical topics such as coaching, training and grassroots football, marketing and media activities, event management and many other areas in which the associations will increasingly exchange themselves at the administrative level.”
An FFA statement on the deal focused on the benefits of joint involvement by the two parties in one another’s programmes with the FFA having run ‘Just Play’ a sport for development programme (mainly in Oceania) which “uses football to teach children aged 6-12 about gender equality, hygiene and sanitation and the role an active lifestyle plays in avoiding non-communicable diseases like obesity,” since 2009.
It is planned that staff from the German and Australian associations will meet in August for a workshop to underpin the implementation of the project which will include joint administration of a sport for development program, expertise exchanges and information sharing including on coaching, grassroots football, marketing and media as well as event management.
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