Chengdu Football Association’s officials during their visit to Aspire Academy, yesterday.
Doha: Aspire Academy, yesterday hosted two high powered delegations from FIFA’s Digital Transformation and Innovation Division and the Chengdu Football Association from China, who toured Aspire during their visit to Qatar.
The FIFA delegation included Carlo Torniai, Director Strategy, Planning & Digital Ventures House at FIFA, Benjamin Stoll, Director Business Technology & Innovation House and Michael Broughton, Senior Advisor - Business Technology, Innovation & Investment Strategy at FIFA.
GU Jianming, Executive Committee Member of Chinese Football Association and President of Chengdu Football Association led the delegation that included, Xiong Yan, Director of Chengdu Sports Bureau, CAO Xu, the Deputy Director of General Affair Department of Chengdu Sports Bureau and Fan Fangyuan, Deputy General Secretary and Director of International Relations Department of Chengdu Football Association.
Aspire Academy Director of Sport and Strategy, Markus Egger welcomed both delegations before going on to lead the tour of the Academy complex.
The FIFA team showed huge interest with the state-of-the-art technology that was presented to them in the Football Performance Center and further explained in a video call with Valter di Salvo, Director of Football Performance & Science at Aspire Academy.
“I am really impressed. I am coming from a strong background in data and artificial intelligence. Besides the impressive facilities, I was really struck with the use of data and technology. Not only by how you shape and make sense of training data, but also by the way you build the learning context that is required for you to succeed,” said Torniai, who joined FIFA from Pirelli where he was the Director for Digital Product Development, as well the Director for Data Science and Analytics.
Meanwhile, GU Jianming congratulated Qatar on winning the 2019 AFC Asian Cup and described the victory as sensational and confirmation of the astute long term planning and a successful football development programmes that are well defined by the work done at Aspire Academy.
“First let me congratulate Qatar on your victory in the 2019 Asian Cup as well as winning the bid to host FIFA 2022 World Cup. Our visit to Qatar has left us with great impressions of the country and the good work been done in youth sport development and coaching.
“We want to enhance our cooperation and partnership with Qatar Football Association, Aspire Academy and Aspetar in football development,” said Jianming.
