Khairy still not happy with NFDP's progress

19 Mei, 2016


PUTRAJAYA: Youth and Sports Minister Khairy Jamaluddin is still not satisfied with the progress of the National Football Development Programme (NFDP), which started two years ago.

Although the NFDP National Under-13 team did well to win the prestigious IBER Cup in Costa del Sol in Spain last year, Khairy believes that more needs to be done to further improve the team.

“NFDP project director Lim (Teong Kim) and I are never satisfied. Our objective is to have a calibre team capable of qualifying for the World Cup one day ... and to achieve that, we need the team to continue improving,” said Khairy, who added that there are 123 NFDP centres in Malaysia – with 19,252 trainees and 966 coaches.

“I hope to see about 300 NFDP centres in Malaysia and with a bigger pool of players,” said Khairy.

The NFDP was officially launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak in Gambang, Pahang, in 2014.

The programme is held in collaboration with the Youth and Sports Ministry, Education Ministry, National Sports Council (NSC) and Football Association of Malaysia (FAM).

Khairy also announced that they’ve started the Mokhtar Dahari National Football Academy in Gambang and that the project would be completed by July 2017.

“The top 380 players from the NFDP programme will be based at the Mokhtar Dahari Academy,” said Khairy, who thanked Adidas for their three-year partnership with the NFDP from 2016-2018.

The partnership is worth of RM1.2mil for three years, with the renowned sports brand providing attire and equipment to the players.

Adidas Malaysia general manager Max An said that their aim was to improve the standard of football in Malaysia and enhance the quality of the young players.

Meanwhile, Teong Kim said that the NFDP Under-13 team will not defend the IBER Cup this year. Instead, the 25-player NFDP team will leave for Europe on May 25 for a series of 16 matches in five weeks.

“The NFDP team will also feature in the Under-14 Elite Cup in Mougins, France, on June 11-12 as well as play friendlies against clubs from Switzerland, Germany, Austria and Italy,” said Teong Kim.

Among the top European clubs that NFDP will playing against during the tour are Inter Milan, Juventus, Monaco and Lyon.

Sumber – Aftar Singh, The Star Online, www.thestar.com.my