www.FIFA.com<\/a>) Legend appears alongside HRH Princess Reem Bint Abdullah Bin Mosaad Al Saud; Didier Drogba praised FIFA President Gianni Infantino\u2019s work for African football; HRH Princess Reem referenced recent women\u2019s football developments in Saudi Arabia<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/p>\nFIFA Legend and the World Health Organization\u2019s Goodwill Ambassador for Sport and Health Didier Drogba has spoken about football’s power to teach people from different backgrounds how to live together, the growth of women’s football and the need to create more opportunities for players in Africa.<\/p>\n
The former C\u00f4te d’Ivoire and Chelsea forward was appearing alongside HRH Princess Reem Bint Abdullah Bin Mosaad Al Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the Making Trade Score for Women! event which was held at the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, Switzerland.<\/p>\n
\u201cFootball isn’t just about winning or losing, football is also about being a good person, learning how to live together, in a team full of different nationalities,\u201d Drogba said. \u201cFor example, at Chelsea, I was playing with Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Ivorians, Ghanaians and we had to learn how to live together, to respect each other’s culture and play for the same badge. These are the values that you win and you learn when you play football. This is something all the kids should have.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turning to football in Africa, he spoke of the need to create the right conditions for players to develop. \u201cI think we need to create opportunities in Africa, on the continent, give opportunities to kids, to have youth leagues,\u201d Drogba said. \u201cIf you want to become a superstar, there are some stages of practice that you need to learn, and we don\u2019t have that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said that the African Super League, which is set to kick off later this year, would be a great opportunity for the continent to develop infrastructure and praised the FIFA President Gianni Infantino for altering perceptions of African football. \u201cSince his election, he really changed the way we see football in Africa…Now, we see the economics, the development in terms of investments for companies into football.\u201d<\/p>\n
With the FIFA Women’s World Cup Australia and New Zealand 2023 less than three months away, Didier Drogba praised the standard of women’s football.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played with great players, in great teams, but I could see some of these women players being in our squad and performing and competing with the boys,\u201d he said. \u201cYou know, when I watch the game, I see the way they touch the ball. You know, the first touch is so important when you play football, and trust me, even I missed some of my first touches, but they\u2019re so focused on it, and they make it a better, more beautiful game to watch.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia recently launched its first women\u2019s football league and the women\u2019s national team played their first matches in 2022, and Princess Reem spoke about the rapid growth of the sport in the kingdom.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government has made a tremendous effort in supporting us, whether it\u2019s organising leagues, forming a national team, having multiple programmes for Saudi men and women to grow the sport, so this is an exciting time,\u201d said Princess Reem. \u201cWe are in a very important stage in our development. I know that it takes a lot of time, work, patience, and experience to do what the men\u2019s team did, but hopefully I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll be able to make our country proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0Saudi Arabia\u2019s women\u2019s national team played their first-ever women’s international matches in 2022, and they have also launched a team at girls\u2019 under-17 level. The kingdom has over 1,000 licenced coaches compared to 119 in 2021, and almost 50,000 girls in the schools\u2019 league, supported by regional training centres for girls aged six to 17 years which have been established. The number of referees in Saudi Arabia has increased by 66% and the number of clubs by 56% in a short period of time, supported by the fact that a first and second-tier women\u2019s league has kicked off including 25 teams, in total.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ZURICH, Switzerland, May 2, 2023\/APO Group\/ — FIFA (www.FIFA.com) Legend appears alongside HRH Princess Reem Bint Abdullah Bin Mosaad Al Saud; Didier Drogba praised FIFA President Gianni Infantino\u2019s work for African football; HRH Princess Reem referenced recent women\u2019s football developments in Saudi Arabia FIFA Legend and the World Health Organization\u2019s Goodwill Ambassador for Sport and […]<\/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-50358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50358","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=50358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50358\/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=50358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/southafricatoday.net\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}