FFA president announces ‘legendary’ football expert’s arrival to Armenian team Save Share

Football Federation of Armenia (FFA) President Artur Vanetsyan has shared his vision of developing the sports in Armenia.

Vanetsyan, who is also the director of national security, noted with regret that today the basis on which future successes in football should be built don’t exist in Armenia.

In an interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian service – Azatutyun, Vanetsyan stressed that the society has a misconception that the work of the federation is solely judged with results of the national team’s matches.

“When the Armenian national team lost to Gibraltar I became the most rejected person. Then, the match with Macedonia took place, the Armenian national team won, I exited the stadium and everyone, around ten thousand people, were chanting my name,” he said.

He said they aim for popularizing football among the youth and children.

“This requires fields, footballs, and most importantly coaches. I visited Zurich where I met with the FIFA president, recently I met with UEFA president in Dublin, and we reached an agreement on them ensuring some financial assistance to the Armenian football federation, so that we are able to build small arenas. Our goal is to build around 700 small football fields in the coming five years in Armenia. In 2019, we will build 12 small fields in Vayots Dzor, we will build the Yeghegnadzor stadium, we will build a football school in Martuni, we are building a football school in Sisian, Armavir, Etchmiatsin,” Vanetsyan said.

He said that after difficult negotiations they managed to invite a legendary football expert to Armenia, but he refused to disclose the expert’s identity. “I can’t disclose the name under the contract,” he said. Vanetsyan said he will introduce the famed expert on January 6th.

“This is a legendary person in the football world, who has agreed to come and live in Armenia and train our coaches and write a football development program. The country where this person has worked for the past twenty years has the leading spot on the football map today. This person has had nine world champions, six European champions, the majority of today’s football stars have been personally his students,” Vanetsyan said, adding that this famous individual will “lay the foundation for serious football successes”.

“I can’t describe how happy I am because no one believed that we will be able to invite him,” he said.

Vanetsyan expressed conviction that Armenian football has a bright future.