Armenia Wins Best FIFA Forward Programme Projects For Building 89 Mini Pitches

Armenia Wins Best FIFA Forward Programme Projects For Building 89 Mini Pitches

By Niyi Busari

The world football governing body, FIFA, has rewarded the Armenian Football Federation with an award for emerging the best country that maximised the utilisation of FIFA Forward funds, BSNSports.com.ng can report..

The Armenian Football Federation won the FIFA award for building of 89 mini-pitches across the country.

The Andorran Football Association (CAF) came second and was recognised for building of La Massana Sporting facility which serves as a national teams training centre for the country.

FIFA, this year (2023) decided to introduce the FIFA Forward Awards to recognise some of the outstanding projects completed with the funds raised to all Member Associations. The inaugural award focused on infrastructure projects. Twenty-one member associations entered the contest, and were informed of the results on 24th May with Armenia taking the first place followed by Andorra and Moldova as second and third.

The award committee takes into cognisance the projects that have been completed by each member association in the last 7 years the programme which started shortly after Gianni Infantino was elected as FIFA President in 2016. Based on the principle that FIFA's revenues are re-invested in football development around the world, FIFA Forward funds have been used to construct national training centres, refurbish stadiums, build pitches, organise competitions and grow women's football around the world.

Funding were made available to all 211 member Associations and the projects are tailor-made to meet the needs of each country.

The third cycle, FIFA Forward 3.0, began this year and will provide each member association with up to 8 million USD to fund projects over a four-year period.