By Tom Degun
May 17 – FIFA delegates, comprising of representatives from the participating National Federations and officials from the world governing body, have completed their tour of Singapore ahead of the team sports draws for 2010 Summer Youth Olympic Games which are set to take place tomorrow.
The football team draw, which has been organised by Singapore 2010 in conjunction with FIFA, will kick off the series of team sports draws tomorrow morning at the PSA Building Auditorium.
Both Singapore 2010 and FIFA will preside over the team draw in a ceremony that will be witnessed by team representatives from the participating National Federations.
The guest of honour at the historic ceremony will be the Board member and chairman of the marketing advisory committee of Singapore 2010, Kwek Leng Joo.
Kwek was vice-president of the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) from 1997 to 2001 and also led Singapore’s first professional football league, the S-League, as the chairman of its Board of directors.
Meanwhile, FIFA will be represented by delegation leader Marion Mayer-Vorfelder, who is head of Olympics and Youth Events at the organisation.
Goh Kee Nguan, the chief executive of Singapore 2010, said: “The team draws are an important milestone in getting ready for Singapore 2010.
“They herald the start of SYOGOC’s transition into the operations phase for the Games.
“We are expecting keen competition among the teams and look forward to the exciting matches ahead.”
The football competition in Singapore 2010 comprises men and women events.
One representative per FIFA Confederation has been nominated by FIFA for the two events and the six teams per event will divide into two groups of three for the preliminaries.
Each team will play every other team in the group once while the team draw tomorrow will determine the grouping and match fixtures for the preliminaries.
The two teams ranked first and second in each group will move on to the semi-finals, while the teams ranked third in each group play for fifth/sixth place.
The teams participating in men’s football event in Singapore 2010 are Bolivia, Montenegro, Singapore, Vanuatu, Zimbabwe and a yet to be named team from the Americas.
Chile, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Papua New Guinea, Trinidad and Tobago and Turkey will compete in the women’s football event while the 6,000 capacity Jalan Besar Stadium will be the football venue for all of the matches at the Games.
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