OVERWHELMING RESPONSE TO HOST AFF MEET

At the first meeting of the Asean Football Federation (AFF) Council for session 2007/2011 here in Bangkok, Myanmar, Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia have all declared their interest to be one of two host cities of the biennial meet.

However and with the exception of the four host countries of the Asian Cup 2007 which is Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam, an inspection visit will have to be carried out in Myanmar and Singapore before a shortlist of candidate cities are announced at the next meet of the AFF Council.

With the proposed date for the Asean Football Championship in the last week of November 2008 to stretch into the third week of December 2008, the qualifiers will be held probably in August the same year.

Thus far, only Laos have expressed their interest to be host of the qualifiers following Philippine’s hosting of the same event the year before.

In the meantime, the AFF Council has expanded the number of committees under the federation to include the Referees’ Committee and Women’s Committee to add to the existing Emergency Committee, Finance Committee, Competitions Committee and Development Committee.

AFF president His Excellency Tengku Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Ahmad Rithaudeen is the chairman of both the Emergency Committee and Finance Committee.

The four vice presidents of the AFF – His Excellency Ravy Khek (Cambodia), Juan Miguel Romualdez (Philippines), Pengiran Matusin Matasan (Brunei) and Duong Vu Lam (Vietnam) – are chairmen of the respective Competitions Committee, Development Committee, Referee’s Committee and Women’s Committee.

It was also announced that the AFF will also be hosting the Futuro III Administration Management Course in the next few months.

The first module which is the Finance Management, Planning and Human Resources will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia while Bangkok, Thailand will play host to the second module which is Marketing and Communications.

The third module which covers Event Management and Competitions will see Yangon, Myanmar as the host city.

There will also be a Referee Assessors and Trainers/ Match Commissioners Course, Women’s Introductory Coaching Course and Media Seminar later in the year.