There are now a total of 115 Kasibulan Grassroots Courses and Festivals (GCF) conducted successfully by the Philippine Football Federation (PFF) in the country today.
"By the end of October, we should have completed 198 festivals with the support of our 33 Provincial Football Associations (PFA)," said Aquilino Pastoral III of the PFF national grassroots development.
He said there are now currently 5,286 plus teacher- coaches, who just earned their grassroots badge and 33,788 new football players identified from ages 6 to 12 years old including girls.
The remaining months of the year is allotted to Project 2019 of the PFF where regional, national and international competition will be conducted.
Pastoral said Project 2019 is about players who are currently playing in the Kasibulan program,aimed at preparing young boys to play football in the world championship in 2019.
PFF recently finished the evaluation of the Grassroots Development Program(GDP) of Kasibulan program at Pagcor Mactan in Cebu. The grassroots experts who attended the evaluation believed that the grassroots program must also include competitions for Under 11 and Under 13 boys and girls.
"A grassroots curriculum must be written for the following age groups-- 6 to 8 years old, 9 to 10 years old and 11 to 12 years old," Pastoral said.
Grassroots experts said the program will be submitted to the Department of Education (DepEd) as a reference for the K1 to K12 program in football. The local government units (LGUs) must be prioritized in the development of football and that all the PFAs must create their own respective Grassroots Departments for the development of grassroots football.
"Every Grassroots Department must be able to design marketing strategies in developing support for Kasibulan," the experts said.
They agreed that the system of reporting and request for activities to the PFF office must strengthened; continuing education of coaches and grassroots coaches; research and further studies of the current grassroots experts; strengthening the grassroots department of the PFF by allowing experts to monitor and check other regions in the implementation; and to further develop grassroots experts in the country.
All experts believe that grassroots is the program that can sustain the development of football in the future and all of them are optimistic of the future.
The Kasibulan GDP is supported by Pagcor, DepEd and the Asian Football Development Program (AFDP) of Prince Ali Bin Al Hussein. AFDP provides equipments for the program while DepEd is allowing grassroots experts to conduct GCF in the Philippines.
A GCF starts with a two-day grassroots course for 60 teachers-coaches. It culminates in a half day festival on the third day, that trains at least 500 kids on basic football skills like dribbling, passing, and shooting with a taste of playing against other kids as part of the circuit training.
The PFF launched last February 2012 its GDP called Kasibulan with the philosophy of developing Football in every environment in the Philippines for girls and boys between 6 to 12 years old. the program ensures everyone has the opportunity to play and have fun.
Plans started way back in 2010 by the PFF technical department, then FIFA Grassroots Course and Festival conducted by FIFA Instructor Takeshi Ono in 2011. Selected coaches from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao including former national coach Albert Ryan "Abing" Lim and Davao City coach Ramonito "Alas" Carreon were trained on how a Grassroots Festival should be implemented.
Based on FIFA standards and best practices from other countries, the PFF developed the template for its own Grassroots program which we call the Kasibulan-Grassroots Course and Festival.
"Our Grassroots program aims to create a football environment where football will transcend cultural differences," said Pastoral.
The challenge is to encourage members of LGU and DepEd to support and promote football.
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