Former CAF Deputy General Secretary and FIFA Technical Development Coach, Anthony Baffoe, has lauded the Ghana Football Association on the successful organization of its maiden Elite U15 Girls Inter-regional Challenge Tournament.
The tournament, which forms part of the GFA’s implementation of FIFA’s Talent Development Scheme (TDS), aimed at talent identification and witnessed thrilling performances from several young girls who represented their regions admirably.
Speaking with GFA Communications at the Ghanaman Soccer Center of Excellence, the General Secretary of the Professional Footballers Association of Ghana,(PFAG) touched on a host of issues ranging from general organisation, the Catch Them Young Refereeing Policy and Safeguarding, among others.
On General Organization of the tournament, Baffoe applauded the GFA for the initiative.
“I want to congratulate the GFA for this fantastic initiative of the Elite U-15 Girls championship with all the regional teams being here. I’m very, very happy, especially the girls!”
“You (the GFA) have this initiative with the Referees project, the “Catch Them Young” policy; that’s the same way we have to catch the girls very very young. It is a developmental tournament and it falls under the FIFA TDS. I am also a high performance expert for FIFA and to see this is fantastic. I am very impressed and happy to be here and to spend the day at Prampram. It is very good for the players’ development, and for competitions like this, the young player has to play as much as she can and the format adopted for this Tournament allowed the girls to play a lot of football.”
Amthony Baffoe went on to share his general opinion about the event. “Again, it’s not just about playing on the field, it’s the whole experience. I imagine especially the girls coming from the Northern Region, Eastern or the Ashanti Region all the way down to Prampram. Some of them have never traveled in their lives, they are together with other female players in the camp. They may make new friends but it’s for them to have a totally new experience and we are here to make it happen for them and to motivate and inspire them.
On the “Catch Them Young” refereeing policy, Baffoe said he was impressed with the performance of the young Referees and insists the experience from the championship is priceless for them.
“The Catch Them Young Referees have really caught my eyes. It’s also to develop these young referees. When they have these games from a very young age, they get used to a bigger crowd out there. It’s very important to prepare them like that at the very early stage. This is, once again, a very good initiative,” he added.
Baffoe, however, called on the FA to be consistent with the organization of the championship.
“It will be great to have this on a consistent level to really have it as part of the competitions calendar and it’s not always easy to have them together because of school. I believe there should be a collaboration with the Ministry of Education so they look at the school hours and how these programs can be fixed in.”
“There should be more interaction with the Ministry of Education to have a special programme for them and they need to play as much as they can, but, once again, let me say that this is a very good start and I hope we can do that with the female U-15, U-13 and so on. Don’t forget the U-17 World Cup tournaments for female and male, from next year, will be played every year, so we have to prepare the U-13 and U-15 to have a good transition to the U-17”.
He also advised parents to allow their young girls to play football, explaining the enormous benefits associated with this.
“To the parents, I think a child can always combine both education and football. It’s very important for the female players to never neglect their education because education is very important. They also know that only a small percentage make it to the top so when you combine both you have a win-win situation. Let your kids express themselves. It’s very important since there are also safeguarding policies in place to assure the parents that their wards are in good hands,” he added.