Over 4,000 children, coaches, managers and referees from 344 football teams will join Football for All in Việt Nam (FFAV) in the central province on July 28-31. — Photo thanhnien.vn

HCM CITY — Over 4,000 children, coaches, managers and referees from 344 football teams will join Football for All in Việt Nam (FFAV) in the central province on July 28-31.

Châu Hồng Tịnh, head of the FFAV project’s communications, said 207 teams in the under-11 age category and 128 teams in the under-15 and under-9 categories, featuring disabled children, will take part in the annual festival for children.

FFAV said the teams, whose players come from SOS villages in Bến Tre, Lâm Đồng, Gia Lai and Đà Nẵng, as well as Quảng Trị, Quảng Bình, Nghệ An and Thanh Hóa, along with Điện Biên, Thái Bình and Thừa Thiên Huế, will compete in football matches and joint life skills activities during the four-day festival across six pitches.  

The FFAV project, funded by the Football Association of Norway, was established to help build up the central province as a model for community football development in Việt Nam.

The project covers the establishment of a women’s football team in the province, improving the capacity of staff of the provincial football federation and organising football festivals for children.

The city has constructed 12 artificial turf pitches to meet the demand for football amongst young people in the city.

It also promotes football as a means of engaging children and the youth in a fun activity and as an educational tool for teaching life skills, while using the project as a model for developing more football clubs in the future.

The Huế football club were promoted to the First Division in 2013. — VNS