Courtesy: The AFC.com


More futsal powerhouses in Asia: Martic

Monday, 18 October 2010

Kuala Lumpur: Croatian futsal legend Mico Martic feels that a train-the-trainers course started here today will help more AFC member associations become futsal powerhouses not only in Asia but also the world.

Martic said: “The current group of 25 participants in the course seems to be a good blend, with a number of them being national head coaches. We hope they will become trainers of trainers not only for AFC but also FIFA.

“We hope more AFC member associations will become Asia’s and the world’s futsal powerhouses, like Iran,” he told the-afc.com.

The FIFA instructor was a trainer at the FIFA/AFC Futsal Continental Train the Trainers Selection Course held at the PJ Hilton, here in Malaysia’s capital, on October 18, 2010.

Fellow trainer in the course, Tsang Wai Chung from Hong Kong, shared Martic’s sentiment.

Tsang said the futsal train-the-trainers course was timely because Asia needed to develop its pool of futsal trainers’ teachers fast.

He said: “Some countries have a good futsal league but don’t have people to train the trainers. In some countries, it’s difficult to hold courses because we don’t have enough instructors.

“There are few futsal instructors in Asia now. So, this timely course is highly commendable because it will resolve this shortage,” he said.

The six-day course was opened by AFC Deputy General Secretary Hasan Al Sabah, who in his speech urged the participants to learn as much as possible and to share their lessons with their colleagues back home.

Al Sabah said: “This course is very important because it will show you how to improve futsal instructing in your country.

“Futsal has become one of the important items on the agenda of AFC for improvement and we would like to help all our member associations make the effort to improve the game,” said Al Sabah, who is also AFC Education Division Director.

Meanwhile FIFA Representative Marco Schuepp said the level of futsal in Asia had been definitely improving in the past 10 years.

“We have received increasing requests to hold FIFA courses for futsal from Asia. This is a good sign.

“We also look forward to seeing futsal instructors from Asia become FIFA instructors. Who knows, participants from this batch may become FIFA instructors also someday,” he said.

AFC Futsal Director Ali Targolizadeh said the aim of the course was to train futsal trainers and to learn futsal trends, as well as to find new regional instructors and create futsal network in the continent.


Posted by Luca Ranocchiari --> luca.ranocchiari@futsalplanet.com