DO IT RIGHT: National Football Development Programme technical director Lim Kim Chon (centre) conducts the training session yesterday.
KUCHING: The integrated national football development programme reaches another milestone with the official launching and registration of ‘MyKids Soccer’ Sarawak Zone yesterday.
According to the programme technical assistant director Ibrahim Mohamed, the mission of the programme is to build a capable national team to qualify for the FIFA Youth Under-17 World Cup 2019.
“Therefore our target age are kids aged six to eight years who will be in the ideal age to play for the tournament in 2019,” he said.
The programme, according to him saw for the first time collaboration between Football Association Malaysia (FAM), National Sports Council (NSC), Youth and Sports Ministry and the Education Department.
“The involvement of the four bodies will overlook all possible angles in the youth talent development. Those who were previously left behind, especially potential talents in their tender age would be given the chance to show their abilities,” he added.
Among the aims of the programme are to supply and provide abundance of well trained and coached individual team and players, to give and ensure that everyone has an equal chance to progress. On the programme itself, Ibrahim revealed that 120 students were selected from SK Bandar Baru Samariang who would be coached by a team of qualified trainers.
“They will be given a chance to prove themselves from time to time and after three months will undergo an assessment which will include a game to see whether they can apply what they have learnt.”
“Those who shown no improvements will be eliminated while those who shown tremendous performance will continue with the programme at National Sports School,” Ibrahim added.
“In the sports’ school focus will be toward building the team and creating mutual understanding between potential key players,” he further elaborated.
Parents of the students were also present at the first session yesterday and given an insight of the overall programme.
Present at the training yesterday were the National Football Development Programme Technical Director Lim Kim Chon, the former player for Melaka, Kuala Kumpur and the national team.
Chon, who holds the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Professional Football Diploma previously holds various positions in professional football arena.
Among his positions were the technical director for AFC, FIFA instructor for football coaching, Football Association of Maldives Technical Director and had conducted various FIFA coaching courses around the world.