The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) held a three-day football medicine seminar in Ho Chi Minh City prior to the kick-off of the 2008 AFC Women’s Asian Cup, which also took place in Vietnam’s largest city. Vice President of the Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) Dhong Van Lam was present at the formal opening of the seminar. The seminar, which was attended by a total of 14 doctors and physiotherapists, was conducted by AFC instructors Dr Michiko Tashima Dohi from Japan, Dr Nguyen Van Phu from Vietnam, and AFC Chief Instructor Dato’ Dr Gurcharan, who is also a FIFA-appointed instructor. The seminar reflected the AFC’s commitment to expanding the pool of trained personnel in sports medicine, with Asian football’s governing body keen to have get-togethers of this kind in the days prior to centralised AFC competitions. The 2008 AFC Women’s Asian Cup was the first time a medical seminar has been conducted before a tournament.
Bahrain Football Association General Secretary Ahmed Jassim hopes the Vision Asia project will give much-needed impetus to the development of football in his country. Speaking during the recent two-day Vision Bahrain workshop at AFC House in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Ahmed said: “We value Vision Bahrain as our first step towards professionalism and hope that it will lend a new direction to the development of the game. We have learnt a lot from this workshop, especially about the strategic development plan. This will be the first time we have implemented a plan of this kind.” The former FIFA referee also said his association would concentrate on grassroots and youth development: “We believe our strength lies in this category and we have already started developing our young players. We are already in a position to implement 80 per cent of the strategic development plan but it will take several years to adopt it completely. We are also now concentrating on drafting new competition regulations and restructuring the association by hiring professional staff.”

Football has been at the centre of attention in recent weeks, which has had a major effect on July’s FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking. New European champions Spain (1st, up 3) have claimed top spot for the first time since the ranking was introduced in 1993. Although Italy (2nd, up 1) had a mixed EURO 2008 campaign, their performances were enough to retain a narrow lead over EURO 2008 runners-up Germany (3rd, up 2). Meanwhile, Brazil (4th, down 2) and Argentina (6th, down 5) – who had held the top spot since October 2007 – have lost considerable ground due to recent results in the race to qualify for the 2010 FIFA World Cup™.
The Netherlands (5th, up 5) have taken advantage of the situation by manoeuvring themselves in between the two South American teams, but impressive showings at EURO 2008 have also seen Croatia (7th, up 8 ) and Portugal ( 9th, up 2) climb into the top ten, a feat that has narrowly evaded both Russia (11th, up 13) and Turkey (14th, up 6). Two teams – England (15th, down 6) and Greece (18th, down 10) – have slipped down the ranking and are no longer in the top ten.
There are also a number of major movers outside of Europe. Teams to have made striking progress in the top 100 include Nigeria (26th, up 8), Iran (37th, up 11) and Saudi Arabia (49th, up 5), as well as a raft of teams who have climbed 20 or more places: Burkina Faso (64th, up 47), Gabon (74th, up 20), Cuba (78th, up 26), Cape Verde Islands (85th, up 24), Suriname (87th, up 58), Kenya (92nd, up 23) and Korea DPR (94th, up 24). All of these teams have played between two and five 2010 FIFA World Cup™ qualifiers in recent weeks, winning at least once. Both of July’s biggest movers (Suriname and Burkina Faso) won all of their recent qualifiers. Chad (127th, up 21), Suriname and Rwanda (87th, up 19) are all in their highest-ever position in the world ranking.

Constant Omari Selemani is President of the Congo DR football association (FECOFA). He was in Switzerland in June to take in some of the action from UEFA EURO 2008 and travelled to the Home of FIFA in Zurich to visit FIFA President Joseph S. Blatter.
Could you tell us a bit more about the reasons for your visit to FIFA?
Constant Omari Selemani: I came to Zurich to visit President Blatter in person and bring to his attention a certain number of problems affecting our association. I also made special mention of the qualification of our women’s U-20 team for the 2008 World Cup in Chile at the end of this year and I caught up with the latest FIFA news!
Congo DR have started well in their qualifying campaign for the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™…
Selemani: It’s been a good start. Losing 2-1 to reigning African champions Egypt is nothing to be ashamed of, especially as the team put in a very good performance. Then we won at home against Malawi before going on to beat Djibouti home and away. We’re now top of the group, which is fantastic.
Patrice Neveu is the new coach; what has he been asked to achieve?
Selemani: The goals we have set Patrice Neveu are clear. Firstly, getting the national team back on its feet. We didn’t qualify for the Africa Cup of Nations, so we need to rebuild our national team. After that, we have to try to qualify for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and thus also for the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations in Angola.
A large number of Congo DR internationals play in Europe…
Selemani: There must be 80 per cent of our internationals playing abroad. That’s a lot. But there are plenty of reasons for that. First of all, all the good African players – or most of them – leave for Europe, where they benefit from better training and better infrastructure. Once there, they naturally stay a notch above the local players who live with problems relating to organisation, training, etc. As a result, the fact that most of our players play for clubs abroad is an asset for our national team. But in terms of domestic development, it’s a weakness, because the success of African players in Europe doesn’t benefit the local leagues enough. We need to come up with new initiatives and ideas on how to develop the local leagues in Africa and, through that, have national teams with a local spine.
One of Congo DR’s most stunning recent successes has been the second consecutive qualification of the women’s U-20 side for the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup. How do you explain that?
Selemani: For a long time, women’s football was a little bit taboo in our country. It wasn’t easy to get girls to play football. We started up a national league for women’s football. After the first qualification for the U-20 Women’s World Cup in 2006 in Russia, we organised the Women’s Congo Cup, based on teams drawn from the provinces. After qualifying for Russia 2006, it had a knock-on effect, with lots of young women and girls discovering they had a vocation. That enthusiasm has borne fruit, little by little, which explains how we managed to qualify for the second time in a row this year.