Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Kuala Lumpur: The Japan Football Association has become the first nation to win the Member Association of the Year 2013 for Grassroots Football Award in recognition of their efforts in spurring the growth of grassroots football.
The JFA beat two other nominees for the award, the All India Football Federation and Vietnam Football Federation.
“This is one of the top accolades we have achieved over the years because grassroots has always been the top priority of Japan Football Association (JFA), said JFA President Kuniya Daini after receiving the first AFC Member Association of the Year for Grassroots Football award from Zaw Zaw, AFC Executive Committee Member and Chairman of the Organising Committee for AFC Youth Competitions.
“This year AFC is celebrating the AFC Grassroots Year and we had several grassroots activities to mark the occasion although we have been working on our grassroots football from quite a long time."
“If you see our current national team, most of them are the products of our grassroots activities so being officially recognised by AFC as a the top grassroots Member Association is the biggest reward and recognition.”
This new award was started this year and aims to recognise a Member Association who has made tremendous efforts to promote grassroots football. The launch of this award this could not have been timelier as the year 2013 has also been marked as AFC Grassroots Year while May 15 has been designated as AFC Grassroots Day.
The award is given to a Member Association based on several factors such as its grassroots structure and philosophy/policy, links with partners for grassroots football development, grassroots technical programmes and activities, programmes/activities on social responsibility in grassroots, exchange programmes and special developmental/promotional activities during the AFC Grassroots Year 2013.