FIFA President participates in the launch of a FIFA Forward project in Senegal
FIFA President Gianni Infantino joined hundreds of school children celebrated the launch of a new football development project in Dakar, Senegal.
The Lycée Lamine Gueye has a capacity of 3,000 students and the project, part of the FIFA Forward programme, follows a Memorandum of Understanding with the Confederation Africaine de Football (CAF) and the African Union in February 2019. The project includes the construction of a new pitch, an outdoor futsal pitch and the renovation of changing rooms for boys and girls. It will allow the community to benefit from facilities which it hosts training sessions for clubs and schools in the Dakar-Plateau area, inter-school (UASSU) and inter-university competitions and pupils from surrounding colleges.
The video submission includes event B-roll and clips from various participants, including FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
Transcript (source audio is indicated):
FIFA President Gianni Infantino (FR)
“I am truly delighted. I’m a happy man today; I am pleased and honoured to be here. Everyone here knows (Senegal Football Federation President) Augustin Senghor, don’t you? He’s a brilliant alumni from this legendary college. He went on to graduate and became a lawyer, mayor, and President of the [Senegalese Football] Federation. I’ve known him for a few years, and you can see what football and its magic can create.
He spoke for – I don’t know – five minutes with a smile on his face. Has anyone seen him smile that much before? That’s because he’s the champion of Africa, because you’re champions of Africa – that’s why. Well done. This smile is exactly the joy we want to bring to all these students here in this Lamine Guèye college, with all the construction and renovation work carried out on infrastructures. Combining education and sport is very important.
It’s also very important that we have today amongst us the clubs that are going to use this pitch along with the college club, obviously, but we also have representatives of other African countries here, including Cameroon, Mauritania, Djibouti, Comoros and Liberia. That’s all for now, isn’t it? They’ve come here to celebrate this FIFA initiative.”
FIFA President Gianni Infantino (FR)
“Football is about magic, joy, hope and smiles. The magic of this ball… When you’re serious, when a child cries, just give him a [foot] ball and he’ll smile right away. Even big children like (Senegal Football Federation President) Augustin (Senghor), who is always so serious, smile when they win an African Cup [of Nations] with this ball. It’s magic, and we really need to use it in order to train our youngsters and the future youngsters.
In order to teach them how to play football, although they can’t all become [Khalilou] Fadiga – who is here today, too, isn’t he? Here he is. Or [El-Hadji] Diouf, [Edouard] Mendy, [Kalidou] Koulibaly or [Sadio] Mané.. Not everyone can become a football star or legend, but everyone can become someone. Everyone can become a brilliant man or woman in their field. They can become a lawyer or president, and win the African Cup as president. You can do anything in life, and even become FIFA President. But to all the youngsters here: just wait a little longer, as I’m still here for now. So, if you have any ambitions, save them for another few years.”
FIFA President Gianni Infantino (FR)
It’s important to ensure that education and sport go hand-in-hand because football is a school of life. We have professor Arsène Wenger here with us, a great coach. He is proof of this new philosophy we have at FIFA to combine education, training and development. With the [foot] ball as a pretext, you can speak about anything. You can speak about respect, violence and team spirit; you can help each other too. There is this trait in football that I really like, which I think can help all boys and girls in life.”
FIFA President Gianni Infantino (FR)
“Thank you for being here with us, for welcoming us here. It’s been a real pleasure and honour. I’m counting on you to make sure that a lot of future footballers, doctors, lawyers and professors come out from this great college, and that we can have many other colleges like this one in Africa and everywhere across the world to take on-board in this new adventure. Thank you for being here, thank you.”
Senegal Football Federation President Augustin Senghor (FR)
“On behalf of both the footballing family and the Lamine Guèye college, I’d like to say a big “thank you”. I’d like to finish up by simply telling the students here that they have a chance. For seven years, we didn’t get the chance to host the FIFA President and all of his colleagues or their CAF counterparts, and we certainly didn’t get the chance to see investment like this from FIFA or the chance to have the first futsal court in Senegal’s history. I think that it’s important to highlight that, and it’s right here at the Lamine Guèye college.
So, it’s almost a tribute to the past when we renovate these football pitches, but it’s a look towards the future when we decide to open the country’s first futsal court here at Lamine Gueye because it means that, as we were recently, we’ll be the African futsal champions again in a few years, and we’ll owe it to this FIFA team led by Mr Gianni Infantino.”
Contributed by FIFA
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