YANGON (1 Feb 2019) – The Myanmar Football Federation (MFF) have announced plans for a new Futsal Indoor Stadium which will be built next to the Thuwunna Stadium.
Through Myanmar Times, MFF General Secretary Ko Ko Thein shared his his idea of the new plans.
How do you get the idea to build Myanmar’s first international indoor futsal stadium?
I got this idea 10 years ago but we can’t implement it because Myanmar football federation has been busy with other important sectors. Futsal will simultaneously improve in our country.
There is a lot of futsal players in Myanmar, hundreds of Futsal teams. We thought Futsal will improve depending on the support we can make.
In Southeast Asian competitions, Myanmar national futsal team secured the medals.
Despite MFF held annual domestic futsal league, we still do not have Futsal stadium. And we have one in Thuwuna indoor stadium rented from the Ministry of Health and Sport.
But Thuwuna indoor stadium is unavailable all the time. That stadium needs to host other ceremonies. If they have other ceremonies, our futsal fixtures have to change. This condition wasn’t effective to improve Futsal. That’s why we have come up with the idea of Futsal stadium project implementation.
MFF submitted a report to FIFA about this project and was accepted. We collect four-year budget of FIFA and we’ll spend all money on this project. This stadium becomes first ever international futsal indoor stadium in Myanmar.
Where is it going to be built? When will construction start and when will it complete?
We proposed to build at Thuwuna football stadium’s car parking area. FIFA’d already checked this place. This stadium will include a seating capacity between 2000 and 2800. We target to build within a year. Construction will start in February and expect to be completed in mid 2020.
How much will this project cost?
FIFA supported US$2 million for this project. We think this project will cost over USD 4million. However, we will start with FIFA’s USD 2million budget and keep going step by step. And MFF will pay for the costs for further expansion.
As this stadium has been declared to be an international standard- to what extent we should expect?
Our main discussion is on this point. Especially, the stadium’s floor is most important. We’ll use world and Asian standard fibre flooring. This stadium will defintiely look impressive and will be Asia quality level.
To what extent this stadium will contribute for the improvement of Myanmar futsal?
After this stadium is finished, we can hold domestic futsal league. We will get training pitch for the national futsal team. We can host Southeast Asia and Asian level futsal competitions in future. This stadium is good thing for Myanmar futsal improvement.
