Inside World Football
Tuesday March 26, 2019
Somali national team players embrace during a game in 2015. Jeroen van Loon/Al Jazeera
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.