Enriched participants and satisfied instructors crowned the highly-informative three-day FIFA Women’s Regional Development Seminar and India Development Workshop, on which curtains came down today (December 17, 2014).

The first of its kind seminar in Asia which was aimed at enlightening participants on the best practices to develop women’s football on and off the pitch was attended by participants from not only India but eleven other Asian countries making it a total of 100 participants with 41 international faces.

The unique Workshop was conducted by experts from FIFA and AFC namely Moya Dodd, Vice-president of the Asian Football Confederation and a co-opted member of FIFA’s Executive Committee; Heike Ullrich, Deputy Director, German FA, Head of Women’s Football at the German Football Association; and Hesterine de Reus, former Dutch footballer who recently worked as head Coach of the Australian Women’s Team and Monika Staab, FIFA Technical Expert consultant for Women’s Football.

From the host country’s side all stakeholders of women’ football including National Team and Youth coaches, India Captain former and current National Team players, AIFF General Secretary Kushal Das, Vice-President Subrata Dutta, Director of Technical Director Academies and Director Coach Education Scott O’Donell, FIFA Regional Development Officer for South and Central Asia Dr. Shaji Prabhakaran and many executive committee members were present.

Kushal Das ushered that, “Despite the financial hurdles we all face as Member Associations, what I gathered from the Seminar is that there no shortage of intent and ideas and that’s very encouraging.”

“The importance of having a women’s league was duly underlined and we all at AIFF realise that. I on behalf of AIFF I hope to work with you all in close association to develop the women’s game which I have time and again said is a priority for us.”

“I appreciate FIFA’s efforts to educate Asian countries for the development and promotion of women’s football,” Dutta told AIFF Media about the seminar.

“I am sure results will come with proper application of the knowledge gained,” the AIFF Senior Vice President added.

Dr. Prabhakaran maintained: “I am really happy that this seminar finally took place and from where we started on 15th, I feel all will be going enriched. I hope all the talk here is translated into actual work which is very important.”

Scott O’Donell, under whom the newly formed dedicated Women’s department at AIFF is, felt this session will go a long way in forming an overall clearer picture of how to go about.

“This was a very beneficial workshop where sessions not only on the technical aspect were conducted but on marketing, social media, case studies and so on. There was a lot of interaction also with round table discussions on various subjects and we had interesting ideas.”

“Plan to initiate and strengthen grassroots and youth football for girls were also chalked out.”

Of the raft of sessions sprayed over the three days, a panel discussion involving all the aforementioned FIFA linchpins, overview of SAFF Championship, women’s football and its trends and development, promotion on media and social media, grassroots plan, structuring and developing a league and what would the best model to adopt for a women’s league in India were the topics of much interest.

Reflecting back on the three days of brainstorming sessions all for the betterment of the women’s game, Staab who was the Observer in the SAFF Championship said: “After covering all aspects of the game from the development point of view, I believe having leaders is very important.”

“At the moment India is on the ninth floor in a building where Germany, Japan and USA are on the 15th. They are coming up. There is still room for development but for that everyone needs to stay on the same page and walk the talking done here over the three days.”

“What I gather is there are state associations which are much ahead than others and thus disparity in results too. Everybody needs to come up and follow one path and this is what we tried to tell all sate associations present here.”

There were 12 state association representatives present in the seminar.

Summing up the mood of the participants, India Captain and iconic footballer Bembem Devi said: “This is a seminar that will do a lot of good if the information is translated into the body of work needed to be done. I have always maintained that women’s football is on the rise and now it is time to take the next step and aim to play the World Cup.”

(Report & Picture courtesy AIFF Media)