{{The new President of the Rwandan Football Association (FERWAFA) Celestin Ntagungira met the FIFA President Joseph Blatter on Monday and the two discussed the state of the game in the African country.}} <\/p>\n
\u201cWe spoke about what FIFA has done for Rwanda through the Goal projects, artificial pitches, new offices and the training academy,\u201d Ntagungira said.<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cWe also discussed new projects, such as the possibility of building a sports complex where the national teams can train.\u201d <\/p>\n
According to the reports, Ntagungira\u2019s main concern is youth football, however, as he explained in setting out his objectives: \u201cWe want to promote the youth game throughout the country, the aim being to spot players and organize competitions for youngsters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Acknowledging that there is much work to be done across all areas of Rwandan football, the nation\u2019s new football chief had this to say: \u201cI also want to work on the Association\u2019s statutes, look at how the clubs are run, and set up a range of training programs for coaches, referees and women\u2019s football.
\nWe also need sponsors, which is another area we have to focus on, not to mention media coverage of our game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Returning to the core theme of youth football, Ntagungira pointed to Rwanda\u2019s qualification for the FIFA U-17 World Cup Mexico 2011 as an example of what can be achieved: \u201cIt was a huge success for the country. <\/p>\n
The backbone of that team came out of the academy set up by FIFA, and four or five of them have now broken into the national side. That\u2019s why we are so appreciative of FIFA, and we want to continue in that direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsing the development of youth football as a platform, we want to set up regional leagues, which didn\u2019t exist before,\u201d said Ntagungira. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt this moment in time, football\u2019s played mainly in the towns and cities, but we want to take it to every corner of the country. Our goal is to have as many people playing the game as possible and to help our national teams develop.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{The new President of the Rwandan Football Association (FERWAFA) Celestin Ntagungira met the FIFA President Joseph Blatter on Monday and the two discussed the state of the game in the African country.}} \u201cWe spoke about what FIFA has done for Rwanda through the Goal projects, artificial pitches, new offices and the training academy,\u201d Ntagungira said. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[75],"byline":[158],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-1682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","tag-homenews","byline-b_igi_adm1n"],"bylines":[{"id":158,"name":"b_igi_adm1n","slug":"b_igi_adm1n","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":1}],"contributors":[{"id":158,"name":"b_igi_adm1n","slug":"b_igi_adm1n","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":1}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1682\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1682"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=1682"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=1682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}