By Paul Nicholson
May 31 – The strength of football in Iran was out evident again at the weekend when the Iranian football federation (FFIRI) held its second Islamic Republic of Iran National Grassroots Conference in conjunction with the Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) Grassroots Football Day with more than 600 grassroots coaches and managers from across the country present.
May 10 – Two of FIFA’s six confederations, the Asian Football Confederation and CONCACAF, have strengthened their collaboration by signing a fresh Memorandum of Understanding “to encourage knowledge, exchange and to enhance football development in the respective territories.”
April 21 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is to set up a Referee Academy based at AFC headquarters in Kula Lumpur, aimed at increasing the number of AFC referees at world class level within the region and improving standards across the region.
March 22 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) completed its third accelerated learning course for referees in Japan on Monday. Designed to identify and speed up the development of refereeing talent in the region, the two-year programme aims to graduate more officials to FIFA standards.
March 1 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has renewed its partnership with the German FA (DFB) for another four years. The Memorandum of Understanding between the two bodies was first signed in 2013.
By Samindra Kunti
January 26 – Six clubs will participate in the inaugural Indian Women’s League, the IWL. Kolkata and Bengaluru have no representation, but the tournament may help to improve the standard of women’s football in India.
November 29 – Qatar’s national coach has threatened to resign if a plan being considered by the country’s football authorities to exclude naturalised players from the squad is carried out.
November 29 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has picked sports data specialists Genius Sports to supply a new Competition Management system.
September 12 – Kyrgyzstan became the third Asian federation to launch its Live Streaming Platform during a recent friendly match against the Philippines. This follows the launch of the video platform in Bhutan and Oman.
September 9 – Educating the educators has become a key initiative of the Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) drive to improve the levels of play across the region. This week the confederation hosted its third Coach Education Panel in Kuala Lumpur since its formation last year.
September 5 – Asia’s top coaches have endorsed the use of video replays in matches at the inaugural Elite Club Coaches’ Forum in Shanghai, China. The coaches felt that the use of technology should be expanded and that video replays in particular protected the referees by being able to check decisions, as well as ensuring wrong decisions were corrected.
August 26 – The top brass of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) and the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) met in Kuala Lumpur, Thursday, to progress the Memorandum of Understanding signed in Mexico City in May.
August 24 – While the world’s most populous nation, China, is taking the football world by storm with a series of high profile club acquisitions and internal development initiatives, the world’s second most populous nation is without doubt waking up to football, but a little more slowly.
August 2 – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-14 Regional Festival of Football for the ASEAN zone concluded in the Brunei capital on Saturday.
July 29 – Bhutan has become the first of the Asian Football Confederation’s (AFC) member associations to embrace the new Live Streaming Platform with the AFC’s partner mycujoo.
