“Kick Off for Peace” Celebration in Amman, Jordan PDF Print E-mail
  
Day One

  
   PFMP director Robin Graham
   makes a point.
 
The Way of Champions program began in March 2008 and the coaches have been working together for the last six months. In that time there have been many workshops, trainings and meetings to learn and explore the principles and values, and to develop the program for Jordan. Each coach has been investing a lot of time, energy and creativity to make these principles and values relevant and meaningful. The program has shown that the love of the game can really bind coaches together. Everyone has gained so much from the time together. The values have become very important to all participants and the youth that they coach. Now each coach has great stories about how the values are being put into practice by their youth players.

Monday, August 18th, the first of three evening programs was held at the Zaha Cultural Center, a Way of Champions partner in Amman. This first night, the football clubs from the 1st and 2nd divisions of Jordan football were invited to come and share the vision and practice of the Way of Champions program. Al Wihdat the top club in Jordan had representatives there, and they were astonished at how much the Way of Champions had done in 6 months, and saw how important this can be for the whole of Jordanian football. The club has invited the program to be introduced to their club.

The Kick Off for Peace Celebration highlights the Way of Champions, but not as the conclusion of the teaching program. It is in fact the start of the next stage, to multiply and expand the program first in Jordan and then throughout Western Asia.

 

Day Two

  
 
   The Al Wihdat manager invites the Way of
   Champions program to his club
  
The Jordan Football Association (JFA) sent 10 coaches to the Way of Champions (W of C) evening program on Tuesday August 19th. They were led by Captain Ziad, the Director of the Prince Ali Centers for Promising Youth, which has 72 coaches training promising youth football players throughout Jordan. Approximately 25 of the Way of Champions coaches were also present. Some of the regular group members were in other countries doing international programs, taking courses for refereeing or for coaching certificates from the Asian Football Confederation.

Mr. Walid Abu Shanab, the W of C project director, introduced the project, explaining its development from March through August. He outlined the project’s background, the coaches, the youth teams and the process by which the principles and values were explored and put into practice. He also highlighted several suggestions which the coaches had recommended to improve sportsmanship in games.

As in any project there had been occasional obstacles, but these were met, and overcome.

Mr. Robin Graham, overall global program director for the W of C, then gave an overview of how this Jordan grass roots model was connected to the regional and worldwide initiatives of the Peace Dream Foundation and the World Association of NGOs. These two organizations have been collaborating on this ground breaking initiative to inject a coaching program for principles and values into football. The premise is that with a shift in football culture beginning with youth development using principles and values to improve behavior and character both on the pitch and off the pitch, then football as a whole will be in a unique position to make a dramatic difference with a social contribution to the nation and the wider world.

Each of the JFA coaches present had been a former Jordan national team player. They had many questions which gave Mr. Yousef Shaheen, an international FIFA referee and a member of the W of C coaching team to answer, with his very powerful testimony on the benefits of the W of C training. The JFA coaches were all very happy to attend and enthusiastic about working together for the sake of youth football, and to develop youth as sportsmen and sportswomen of character. Captain Ziad then invited the W of C to the JFA Prince Ali Festival later in August.

 
 

© 2009 Play Football Make Peace