…FIFA President lands in Lusaka
Zambia is a footballing country for men and women that has written some great pages of history in our game, says FIFA President Gianni Infantino.
Infantino is in the country for a two-day visit to meet with football stakeholders and inspect various projects funded by the world football governing body in Lusaka.
Accompanied by the Secretary General Mattias Grafstrom and other FIFA officials, infantino arrived in Lusaka yesterday and was hosted to a gala dinner by the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) at the InterContinental Hotel.
Speaking at the gala dinner, the FIFA supremo expressed his delight and gratitude to FAZ for according him and his delegation a warm welcome.
“It is a great pleasure to be here, thank you to my brother Andrew Kamanga, to his team for welcoming us here in this beautiful country, Zambia, a footballing country for women and for men, it is a country that has written some great pages of history our game” Infantino said.
“We are here today and tomorrow, so the eyes of the world will be facing and looking at what is happening here, and Lusaka will be the capital of the world of football. I am happy and proud to be here with my delegation, it is the first official visit of my delegation, the first official visit of the Secretary General of FIFA as well.”
Infantino said his delegation and himself were in Zambia to support the development of the sport in the country.
“We are here to show every citizen of this beautiful country that we part of the same team, the winning team. We are here to invest in youth, to invest in the future opportunities in hope and I am not just speaking about economic investment, which is there and will be there.”
“We are also here to invest in what we believe, which is football as a school of life for all of us, our children. The World Cup that we win is the World Cup of the smiles of every child that is given a ball to play and we are here to work together to team up and to win together for Zambia,” he said.
Meanwhile, Infantino has commended the FAZ executive for the successes recorded while at the helm of football in the country.
“Congratulations for the fantastic work that you are doing with your team, success does not come through some sort of miracles or by some sort of coincidence. Success comes as a result of hard work. We are proud of you, thank you very much,” he added.
Infantino is today expected to take part in the commemoration of the fallen heroes, the KK11, who perished in a plane crash off the coast of Gabon in 1993 before inspecting some FIFA-funded projects in Lusaka.
