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The AFC Grassroots Panel hit a new milestone in its eighth meeting on Monday, November 18 as 51% of the Member Associations (MAs) are now endorsed by the AFC Grassroots Charter.
The AFC Grassroots Charter is a development tool for Member Associations (MAs) to raise the quality of their grassroots programmes. It identifies 20 performance categories such as grassroots competitions, fairplay, partnerships and personal development.
This AFC grassroots endorsement programme is offered at three levels – bronze, silver and gold. At the entry level (bronze), the emphasis is on mass participation. The next level (silver) focuses on increased levels of quality, and at the highest level (gold), the endorsed members will set the benchmark for grassroots development.
Prior to the meeting in Kuala Lumpur, there were 23 MAs that has been endorsed by the AFC Grassroots Charter:
Gold: Australia, Japan, South Korea
Silver: China, Jordan, Philippines, Singapore
Bronze: Bhutan, Chinese Taipei, Guam, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Macau, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Northern Mariana Islands, Palestine, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Vietnam
The Panel then confirmed the addition Afghanistan to the Bronze category, bringing the total of endorsed MAs to 24.
The members also deliberated on various core issues and obstacles in implementing the Charter, and on the importance of collecting data to enable better decisions to be made.
Several new projects were discussed, including an online application platform that streamlines certain processes under the AFC Grassroots Charter.
Also, it is the panel’s intention to release information on some of the good practices, which has been seen during the evaluation process at some of the MAs.
The AFC Grassroots Football Day 2019 saw a participation of 374,777 people, an increase of 514% from the year before, and was warmly welcomed by the panel.
