Arunava about Football A look at football & the world through my eyes!
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The Latvian Football Association (LFF) is aiming to boost its country’s footballing development through its commitment to making football the most popular sport in Latvia for women and making the game part of the curriculum for physical education classes in schools.
In their bid to achieve the latter, the LFF has just become part of FIFA’s Football for Schools (F4S) programme, which makes football more accessible to children around the world by incorporating it into each country’s education system, thus promoting life skills and valuable competencies through football.
In fact, the implementation of F4S was one of the key points of a meeting held a year ago in Paris between the FIFA President Gianni Infantino and his LFF counterpart Vadims Lasenko, who at the time said that Football for Schools was “a very important issue for us” and that he was beginning to develop it in conjunction with the country’s Ministry of Education and Science in preparation for its implementation.
The programme’s eagerly awaited launch took place on 2-3 May in the Latvian capital Riga with the participation of president Lasenko, government officials and FIFA representatives. The initial phase saw 45 physical education teachers from schools across the country take part in the F4S-organised training course, with 96 students (split equally between boys and girls) helping them put their training into practice. Fourteen of the teachers were women, with several travelling three or more hours to attend – a clear indication of how keen they all were to seize this opportunity.
Now certified, these teachers are ready to implement the programme in their respective schools next year. Moreover, as coach-educators, they will also be able to transfer the knowledge gained to other teachers, thus increasing the programme’s nationwide reach in the short term.
