Africa-Press – Lesotho. The Lepereng OlympAfrica Centre will host the sixth edition of Lesotho’s FutbolNet Cup on Friday. The tournament is part of the FutbolNet initiative which was developed by Spanish giants FC Barcelona a decade ago to promote life skills through football.
The programme was inaugurated into African countries in 2013 through the International Olympic Committee and International OlympAfrica Foundation and there are six values which underpin FutbolNet, namely: commitment, respect, tolerance, teamwork, responsibility and effort.
The tournament is aimed at children between the ages of 12 and 15 and, apart from Lesotho, the other African countries where the project has been deployed are Ivory Coast, Gambia, Eritrea, Seychelles, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Guinea Bissau, Swaziland, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Mauritius, Senegal, Niger, Cameroon, Tanzania, Chad, Mail, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
According to the Lepereng OlympAfrica Centre’s organising committee, events at this year’s FutbolNet Cup will be structured into four main thematic areas which are an ice breaker, a learning activity, a three-period match and a cool down activity.
“(In) the first period of the match players discuss in an autonomous and responsible way,” Lepereng organisers said in a statement explaining how FutbolNet matches will be played.
“(The players) reach agreements about behaviour and rules of play during the football match and in the second period the match is played.
(In) the third period the players (will) rate compliance with agreements reached and define the result of the match.
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Unlike in normal football, there is no referee in FutbolNet play. Instead, there is a ‘teamer’, a moderator whose purpose is to guide the game.
In addition, the team that wins the match is not the one with the most goals rather the one which has best applied the values of the programme. The action in Lepereng will get underway at 10 am and will run until 3pm.
