PETALING JAYA (17 July 2016) – The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Development Committee today recommended new General Development Regulations, which aims to improve the governance, accountability and transparency of all AFC Development Programmes.
Meeting in Kuala Lumpur under the chairmanship of His Excellency Mohamed Khalfan MS Al Romaithi, the committee agreed to the implementation of the Regulations, which will now be put forward to the AFC Executive Committee for ratification.
The new AFC Development regulations will clarify the roles and responsibilities of the Development Committee and Administration as well as addressing the general eligibility of Member Association (MA) applications and obligations, inactivity by MAs, preventing misuse of funds and provide for financial monitoring.
They will also address the eligibility of a MA for Development funds if that Member is suspended. Any benefitting MA will have to demonstrate that they have a four-year strategic plan in place by the start of 2018.
His Excellency said: “This is an important decision which will allow the AFC to continue to progress to the next level. These regulations will create the general principles for Member Associations to benefit from AFC Development programmes.
“They will also ensure clarity on roles, responsibilities and procedures and ensure consistent governance of the programmes.”
The committee also recommended approval of the AFC League Development Programme (LDP) applications of four MAs – Football Association of Maldives (FAM), Palestinian Football Association (PFA), Football Federation of Timor-Leste (FFTL) and Football Federation of Turkmenistan (FFT).
In addition to the well established AFC Mini Pitch Scheme, Expert Pool and Competition Fund, the Committee also approved the implementation of two new President’s Initiative Schemes – the Competitions Management Module and the Live Streaming Platform.
The first scheme for Competitions Management System will enable MAs to manage data for players, teams, matches and tournaments for an ease of internal management and external communications.
While the second scheme for Live Streaming Platform provides a platform to stream live matches online via MA websites, league websites and social media, as well as the ability to create a catalogue of matches, highlights, interviews and other content to promote leagues, youth and women’s football.
The AFC Development Committee came at the end of a week of Committee meetings in Kuala Lumpur which included the AFC Finance Committee, who recommended the 2017-18 Budget to the AFC Executive Committee. The AFC Media and Communications Committee also met as did the AFC Club Licensing Task Force.
