Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - FIFA Vice President HRH Prince Ali and UEFA President Michel Platini on Thursday signed a memorandum of understanding between the Asian Football Development Project (AFDP) and the European football governing body UEFA, according to a statement by AFDP.

Prince Ali and Platini inked the agreement on the sidelines of FIFA Committee meetings in the Japanese capital, host to the 2012 Club World Cup.

The agreement serves to facilitate future cooperation and establish an appropriate framework on matters of common interest pertaining to football development programmes especially those “focusing on education, holistic health for youth and inclusion and participation of all sectors of society, particularly women”.

“On behalf of my colleagues at AFDP, I would like to thank UEFA for their support. This agreement will certainly bolster AFDP’s activities to fill in the gaps in Asia especially given UEFA’s expertise in football development as well as social responsibility in football,” Prince Ali was quoted as saying in the statement.

“We truly look forward to working with UEFA on future projects all across the continent,” he added.

“Football is a symbol of solidarity,” Platini said in the statement. He added that for this reason UEFA is “proud to be working with AFDP especially given its support of youth and women in Asia through football”.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate Prince Ali on this noble initiative and the projects that AFDP have implemented so far,” the UEFA president said.

UEFA has recently donated 15,000 footballs to the Amman based NGO for the benefit of football organisations across Asia. AFDP will establish a distribution framework for football organisations that need it the most. One of the first projects to benefit from UEFA’s equipment assistance is the joint AFDP-Spirit of Soccer project in the Syrian refugee camp in northern Jordan, which will kick off in January 2013.

AFDP, a non-profit youth commission founded and chaired by Prince Ali, was launched in February 2012 with its first pilot grass-roots project in the Philippines. Since its inception, AFDP has supported youth and women football programmes in Jordan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Cambodia, Australia and India amongst others to be launched next year.



* Jordan Times