Fifa’s Football for School programme launched

A consignment of 66,200 balls from the world football governing body, Fifa reached the country over the weekend.

These balls are aimed to kick-start Fifa’s Football for Schools (F4S) programme. This was launched on June 25 at the Federation of Uganda Football Associations (Fufa) Technical centre in Njeru by the Fifa chief of member associations, Kenny Jean-Marie, who was flanked by the Fufa president, Moses Magogo.

During the same event, 50 games teachers from different schools, that have been trained in the F4S programme were unveiled. These are part of the pilot project, that are going to be key players in building more capacity for the programme in due course.

On the surface, this programme is viewed simply as one intended to harness more footballers for Uganda, but there is a lot more than meets the eye. The F4S is a programme that Fifa is doing in conjunction with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco).

Unesco’s main purpose as an arm of the United Nations, is to promote education, one of the key millennium development goals. So, in partnering with Fifa, which is widespread, with far-reaching arms into the depths of many societies through the most popular sport, football, Unesco saw it fit to push through its education goal.

Beyond just the academic work in class, education also encompasses life and social skills, which are pertinent in ensuring that one succeeds in life. For example, some of the key subjects that this F4S programme is going to be teaching children between the ages of four and 18 include: handling winning and losing in life, rules, kindness, being a positive role model, good friends, showing respect, good hygiene, argument solving, no bullying, taking responsibility, recognizing danger and perseverance among others.

Through football, Ali Mwebe, the Fufa director of football development said: “Fifa wants to instil in children all the above in terms of discipline. These subjects will be sessions covering at least 45 to 60 minutes. For example, footballers on the field, solve problems through dribbling to beat an opponent. Children have got to learn how to overcome problems in their daily lives.”

In addition through playing with one another, children will be taught that bullying, seen these days through racism and taunts towards people of another colour, is wrong. Good hygiene, following rules and Respect for others are virtues of good citizenry.

As such, Magogo said that they are going to engage the Ministry of Education and Sports on how to inculcate this programme in the schools curriculum here because of the values it builds.

In fact, to appreciate how serious this programme is, Fifa according to Jean-Marie gave Fufa $50,000 to promote the programme, which in a year’s time, he hopes will have trained at least 200 games masters around the country. Fufa intends to roll it out through its eight football regions when the distribution of balls to schools starts in earnest.

jovi@observer.ug