Al Furqan school defeated Al Wafa Model School in a clash to win the Aspire school football festival 2017 in Doha yesterday. The teams, representing the eight schools who qualified for the festival competed vigorously with each other to win the competition.
Football Development Center, an affiliate of Aspire academy’s football department hosted the Aspire school football festival 2017. The tournament featured young students from independent and private schools in Qatar. The tournament consisted of 10 rounds each lasting 10 minutes. This year around 32 students, representing 16 independent schools and 16 private schools, from across Qatar participated
Diogo Hama, coordinator of Taleb Football Development Center said “We are working with young players all over the country. We recruit the ones that we believe have potential from and train them. It’s the first and crucial step. This is a is a quantitative program and from quantity, we want to develop quality, that’s why we constantly visit schools and recruit them. We are in a pre-competition structure and We try to select quality players from the mass. This is our final activity of the year. We are giving moments of football moments for the kids. This is also very important as these will shape them in various ways. We want to catch them young”
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Mashael Al Sharshani, Senior Administrator at the FSDC, said: “Tournaments such as this present great opportunities for the Academy to find and scout emerging young talent with the potential to one day play for Qatar’s national teams. Getting involved encourages young kids do something they love, as well as preparing them mentally and physically to stay focused in a competitive setting”.
The festival was attended by a number of Aspire Academy’s senior representatives, including of Badr Al Hay, Director of Education and Student Care, Ali Sultan Fakhroo, Director of Corporate Services, Jassem Al Jaber, School Principal, Mr. Nasser Al-Ahbabi, Manager of the Football Skill Development Programme (FSDP), Fatima Al Nuaimi, Ghada Al Mas and Ghada Saliba, Football Administrators at the FSDP Department, in addition to the Academy’s coaches who refereed the matches and oversaw the students.
Qatar’s former leading footballers and the national football team’s all-time top scorer, Mansour Muftah was also among the attendees. Muftah was keen to remain until the closing ceremony to congratulate the young players for winning the tournament. Al Muftah praised the tournament and commended the Academy’s role in encouraging young sports enthusiasts to play sports.
