{"id":44426,"date":"2022-09-29T01:00:10","date_gmt":"2022-09-28T23:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/football\/fifa-president-accepts-niger-invitation\/"},"modified":"2022-09-29T01:00:10","modified_gmt":"2022-09-28T23:00:10","slug":"fifa-president-accepts-niger-invitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/football\/fifa-president-accepts-niger-invitation\/","title":{"rendered":"FIFA President accepts Niger invitation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"press-body-in\">\n                            <span><br \/>\n                                                            ZURICH, Switzerland, September 28, 2022\/APO Group\/ &#8212;<br \/>\n                                                        <\/span><\/p>\n<p>FIFA\u00a0(<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fifa.com\/en\" rel=\"noopener\">www.FIFA.com<\/a>) President to visit Nigerien Football Association in January; Development in Niger hailed as an example to follow by the FIFA President; FIFA Forward funding key in sustaining Nigerian football development.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>FIFA President Gianni Infantino has accepted an invitation to visit Niger following a visit from Hamidou Djibrilla, his opposite number at the Nigerien Football Association (FENIFOOT), in Paris.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve spent the best part of the last year hoping the FIFA President will come and see us and he accepted our invitation today,\u201d explained the FENIFOOT President. \u201cHe\u2019s coming to Niger in January and our people will be delighted to welcome him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The visit will give President Infantino the chance to witness the progress that the western African country has made in recent years. In addition to the national team\u2019s impressive performances in its last two FIFA World Cup\u2122 qualification campaigns, Niger has been working tirelessly to develop its training programmes and infrastructures, all with the support of FIFA.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNiger is often held up by President Infantino as an example for others to follow in terms of its development projects,\u201d said Djibrilla.\u201cOur collaboration with FIFA has been very successful and the FIFA President has always opened his door to us and has always listened to what we have to say. With regard to development, we can only pay tribute to FIFA for what they do for Africa in general and for my country in particular. Without FIFA Forward funding, we would not be able to play at the level we have achieved today and we would not have been able to set up the sporting facilities we now have.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The work and collaboration that FIFA and FENIFOOT engage in every day has one objective: to prepare for tomorrow and harness the huge potential of a nation of nearly 28 million inhabitants in full. \u201cWe spoke a lot about the development of youth and grassroots competitions,\u201d the FENIFOOT President added. \u201cMy country has been held back in particular by the fact that we haven\u2019t developed football academies. That\u2019s why we are now trying to create elite training centres to nurture talented players. As you know, you need gifted footballers to make football work and for the national team to go far.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The FENIFOOT President later met with FIFA Chief of Global Football Development Arsene Wenger to discuss this issue and continue the productive relationship between world football\u2019s governing body and Niger.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/fifa.africa-newsroom.com\/press\/fifa-president-accepts-niger-invitation?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ZURICH, Switzerland, September 28, 2022\/APO Group\/ &#8212; FIFA\u00a0(www.FIFA.com) President to visit Nigerien Football Association in January; Development in Niger hailed as an example to follow by the FIFA President; FIFA Forward funding key in sustaining Nigerian football development. FIFA President Gianni Infantino has accepted an invitation to visit Niger following a visit from Hamidou Djibrilla, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}