{"id":36430,"date":"2023-05-06T06:18:10","date_gmt":"2023-05-06T06:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/build-a-stadium-fifas\/"},"modified":"2023-05-06T06:30:47","modified_gmt":"2023-05-06T06:30:47","slug":"build-a-stadium-fifas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/build-a-stadium-fifas\/","title":{"rendered":"Build a stadium, FIFA’s Infantino urges Kyrgyzstan"},"content":{"rendered":"

BISHKEK (Reuters) – FIFA President Gianni Infantino urged Kyrgyzstan on Friday to build a national football stadium to host international games and address the lack of infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The former Soviet republic has no modern stadiums built to international standards that can host FIFA-level matches, and its national team’s FIFA ranking has fluctuated between positions 201 and 75, currently standing at 96th.<\/p>\n

On the day of Infantino’s visit, the mountainous nation of 7 million inaugurated the new, FIFA-sponsored headquarters of the Kyrgyz Football Union which has previously resided in an old, small building on the outskirts of the capital, Bishkek.<\/p>\n

“I spoke to the (Kyrgyz) president (Sadyr Japarov) about the national stadium of football,” Infantino said.<\/p>\n

“It is very important, symbolic, but crucial for the development, so, we will bring more international games to Kyrgyzstan, and you will shine on the Asian stage and on the global stage.”<\/p>\n

Japarov, whose team made up of senior public servants won a friendly game against that of FIFA officials, said football was the most popular sport in Kyrgyzstan and the country had ambitious goals.<\/p>\n

“Kyrgyzstan has great, great talents. The men’s football team qualified two times in a row for the Asian cup. In 2019, excellent tournament..,” Infantino said. “Now again, qualified with very little infrastructure and football development.”<\/p>\n

FIFA has deployed a talent development team in Kyrgyzstan this year and is investing in a football academy there, as well as programmes to promote the sport at schools and among women. <\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Marlis Myrzakul Uulu; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Kim Coghill)<\/p>\n

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BISHKEK (Reuters) – FIFA President Gianni Infantino urged Kyrgyzstan on Friday to build a national football stadium to host international games and address the lack of infrastructure. The former Soviet republic has no modern stadiums built to international standards that can host FIFA-level matches, and its national team’s FIFA ranking has fluctuated between positions 201 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":36431,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4501W-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36432,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36430\/revisions\/36432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}