21 Sep 2021
Aspire Academy hosted the HE Dr Abdul Karim Cissé, Ambassador of the Republic of Cote D’Ivoire in Doha upon his visit to the world renown institution of youth sports development on Sunday 20 September 2021. The Ambassador was accompanied by former PSG, Al-Rayyan SC and Ivorian international football player Amara Diane. Aspire Academy Deputy Director General, Mr. Ali Salem Afifa met and welcomed the visitors before taking them on a tour of Aspire Academy.
HE Dr Abdul Karim Cissé was highly complimentary of Qatar’s approach to youth sports development programmes which are reflected by Aspire Academy. “I have been in Qatar for two years now after today’s guided tour of Aspire Academy l must admit that I am strongly impressed by what I have seen here at the academy. It is a world class oeuvre/ artwork with a futurist vision that encourages and serves the community to take up sport. I was really fascinated by the design and by the overall work done the talent as well developed here at Aspire. I think such a nice Oeuvre should be duplicated all over the world and I would like to congratulate the Qatari authorities for this magnificent project that serves as a model for the world for youth sport development.”
Looking ahead to the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, I hope that my country (Cote d’Ivoire) will qualify for what will be a fantastic edition of this tournament. At present our national team is leading in the qualifiers and to be present among the elite of football national teams here in Qatar in 2022 would be great. I am happy to be here and testify that Cote D’Ivoire will be honoured to participate in next year’s tournament. It will be a marvellous world cup and going by what we are witnessing here in the country be it in field of sport facilities or other infrastructure -all point to a big football tournament that will be historic indeed,” concluded Ambassador Cissé.
Aspire Academy is a reference point for youth sport development throughout the world and l am delighted to see for myself some of the work and programmes that have made Qatar so successful in youth sport development and Aspire Academy the model of academies world over. 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 many of us seek to learn from what you do here”.