21 Dec 2020
Aspire Academy hosted the Honourable Minister of Youth and Sport from Iraq, Adnan Dirjal on his visit to the world-renowned Academy of youth sport development on Monday 21st December 2020. The Minister one of Iraq's most celebrated former footballers, played and coached the Iraq national team as well as manage several clubs in Qatar before taking up his new role in his home country.
Aspire Academy Deputy Director General, Mr Ali Salem Afifa met and welcomed Honourable Minister Adnan Dirjal and his high level delegation. The Iraqi delegation then went into a meeting with Aspire Academy Director General, Mr Ivan Bravo during which discussions and deliberations centered on mutual cooperation and support for the Iraqis in setting up youth sport development institutions like Aspire. The visitors were shown a presentation of how the Academy works and its modus operandi across different sports.
The former Iraq national team captain, minister Adnan Dirjal was highly complimentary of Qatar’s sports development programmes exemplified by Aspire Academy. “The work of Aspire Academy is well known and praised throughout the world as a model of how to successfully develop sport. I was fortunate to have seen the foundation of the Aspire from the facilities through to the sporting teams that have been developed at this Academy to reach world standard. The work of Aspire is admired by everyone in the world many seek to learn from it, transfer the knowledge and model of Aspire to their own countries and we in Iraqi also seek to implement similar programmes hence this visit. We have held fruitful discussions with Mr Bravo and Mr Ali Salem Afifa and look forward to more cooperation and exchanges as we pursue developing our own sports in Iraq starting with football, said Honourable Minister of Youth and Sport from Iraq, Adnan Dirjal.