DUSHANBE, February 1, 2012, Asia-Plus — A meeting of senior representatives of Tajikistan’s Football Federation (TFF) with heads of football clubs took place in Dushanbe on January 31. Heads of some provinces and districts also attended the meeting.
Speaking at the meeting, the TFF president Rustam Emomali noted that the main objective of the meeting was to discuss issues related to organization of the republican championship among the premier league’s teams and development of football in the country.
“We have invited heads of provinces and districts to attend the meeting because they could promote development of football in the country,” Emomali said.
The meeting participants, in particular, pointed to the necessity of developing youth football players.
Valery Tursunov, the first vice-president of Tajikistan’s Football Federation, noted that they had to resolve many tasks this year.
“In March, the assessment commission of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) will visit Tajikistan to get acquainted with state of our football clubs’ infrastructures,” said Tursunov. “Beginning on 2013, our teams will have a chance to participate in the ACF Cup qualification. For this, we must improve our football fields and stadiums.”
The AFC Cup is an annual international association football competition between domestic clubs sides run by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). Qualification to the competition is to clubs from AFC-affiliated countries which fall into the AFC’s ‘developing nations’ category as laid out in their ‘Vision Asia’ document. Countries which are ‘mature’ nations are entered into the AFC Champions League, and countries which are ‘emerging’ nations are entered into the AFC President”s Cup.
The ‘developing nations are the fourteen ‘next-best’ countries which lie outside the top-14 countries in the AFC region which send their club sides to the more prestigious AFC Champions League.
