Report.az
Yashar Seyidov, former member of the AFFA Executive Committee and president of the "Dinamo" club, which plays in the Azerbaijan II League, gave an interview to "Report". He talked about the main goals of AFFA's development strategy and ways to solve the issue. The football functionary stated that the new strategy could be beneficial for Azerbaijani football.
- You are familiar with AFFA's new development strategy. What can you say about the 5 main goals?
- The 5 main goals of AFFA's development strategy have already been presented to the public. Everyone who reads the clauses is already informed. I think that our main sore point is that young football players do not play in leading European clubs. For this reason, a new, innovative Football Development Center of Azerbaijan will be created to train our talented players. This practice has already paid off in France. Now, selection work must be carried out in all regions of Azerbaijan, and talented young people must be identified. I'll even tell you that we implemented this experience when we worked at the "Baku" club. We identified players from the regions of our country and involved them in the large "Baku" project we created. We collected football players from almost all regions. However, we could not complete the project due to financial problems later. Now we believe that this project will contribute to Azerbaijani football. I would like to specifically mention this part as the main line of the 5 main goals.
- Do you believe that our national teams of lower age groups, consisting of men and women, will regularly participate in the final stages of European championships?
- In order for the issue you mentioned to be resolved, it is necessary to successfully implement the work we listed earlier. If our young football players do not play in leading European clubs, we will not be able to participate in the final stages of the European Championship. Look, the national teams of lower age groups of Georgia and Turkey regularly qualify for the final stages. All this is the result of a successful strategy. I believe it. If everyone fulfills their responsibilities properly, we will be able to achieve success.
- How realistic is it for our young football players to play in leading European clubs?
- Our veteran football players Iskander Javadov, Igor Ponomaryov, Abdulgani Nurmammadov, Asgar Abdullayev, Novruz Azimov, Alakbar Mammadov and others used to play decently in the USSR championship. At that time, the USSR championship was among the 5 largest championships. We must not forget these. Why shouldn't our current football players be among the strong in Europe? Therefore, we must believe in young people. Even the main part of the strategy states: "our victory is in our goals, our belief is in our youth."
- What new things did the Azerbaijani football community learn during the written strategies?
- In general, I must say that after this strategy, some shameful things in Azerbaijani football came to light. After the written clauses, it became clear that only 5 out of 34 clubs playing in the Azerbaijani Leagues meet the minimum requirements. Our national team can play its games in 3 stadiums, and all our national teams of all age groups train at the "Dalga Arena" located in Mardakan. Although there are 65 Children-Youth Sports Schools in Azerbaijan, only 5 of them have a football field. There are 4400 schools in Azerbaijan, and only 40 of them have football lessons. These cases I mentioned came to light after the written strategy. It is never possible to train a strong football player in such conditions.
- You also met with representatives of the Belgian company that came to the country for the strategy. What were your suggestions?
- When the representatives of the Belgian company came to Baku, Tahir Suleymanov and I wanted to meet with them, and thank them for accepting us. Tahir and I put forward our proposals. Most of the topics included in the strategy were put forward by us as proposals. I am grateful that our ideas were listened to and reflected in the clauses. I put forward the proposal related to the main clauses in the main "five" of the strategy.
- As a football functionary, have you prepared any proposals before?
- Even before Rovshan Najaf was appointed president of AFFA, we were making plans for the strategy with executive vice-president Sarkhan Hajiyev. I'm telling you this for the first time. We discussed this topic for about 1 year. But we could not implement it due to lack of funds. I am very happy that this project has already been prepared. Sarkhan Hajiyev also has an exclusive role in these works. Hopefully, AFFA will cope with this work properly.
- Earlier, although the State Program on the development of football in Azerbaijan for 2005-2015 was approved, it did not have any effect. What was the reason for this?
- Now we must not repeat the mistakes we made at that time. At that time, the people responsible for the written strategy did not submit reports. Therefore, I would suggest that those responsible for this work should submit reports to the public every 6 months and show in which direction the work is progressing.
