By Paul Nicholson
October 22 – FIFA chief medical officer Jiri Dvorak has announced an extension of the Football for Health programme in the CONCACAF region with three new pilot initiatives to be undertaken in countries from the three language groups in the region – English, Spanish and French. The markets have still to be chosen.
Dvorak said that he hoped the project would be operating in all CONCACAF countries by 2016/17.
Mexico is the only member of the confederation to have so far participated in the programme which, by 2016/17, will have entered every school in the country, reaching 1.8 million children aged 6-8 years – more than 15 percent of the future population. The Mexican government has committed $30 million to sponsor the programme.
Football for Health is a FIFA preventative and medical education programme based on the concept of 11 players and 11 messages. A school-based enterprise aimed at first grade secondary school children, it takes place over 11 weeks with each weekly 90-minute lesson broken into 45 minutes of learning a new football skill and 45 minutes learning a new health message.
“We try to put football language into health language so that kids will learn,” said Dvorak. “We make football a mandatory part of the school curriculum for 11 weeks.”
The 11 messages of the programme are: Play football, Respect girls and women, Protection from HIV, Avoid drugs and alcohol, Control weight, Drink clean water, Wash Hands, Eat a balanced diet, Vaccinate, Take your medication, and Fair play.
The programme attaches players like Ronaldo, Messi, Ji Sun Park, and Michael Owen to each message and the players enter the classrooms through video. “When football speaks, everyone listens,” said Dvorak.
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