Infantino ends Africa tour

FIFA President Gianni Infantino has ended a 10-day tour of Africa.
Mr Infantino began the trip with a three-day visit to Johannesburg, South Africa, where a two-day forum was organised on how the needs of the African continent and individual nations could best be served.

The tour continued with trips to Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Rwanda, Chad, Ghana, Niger, and Mauritania. The visits across these eight countries gave the FIFA President the chance to meet members of the nations’ footballing communities, see for himself some of the projects taking place across the continent and share his vision of football with those being impacted.

"In the wake of the Johannesburg Executive Summit, it was a pleasure to visit several African member associations and see how much of an everyday passion football is," said Infantino. "I could see how the implementation of our Forward programme has had a concrete and positive impact on the daily lives of those who love football. This is naturally a source of pride, but even more so it is a source of encouragement to keep on working. The activities carried out by our member associations on the field are remarkable.”

At Uganda, Mr Infantino helped lay the foundation stone of a training complex and the Hotel of the Rwanda FA, while inaugurating a hotel at the national training centre in Niger.

“This trip was also an opportunity for me to learn more about the constraints, the needs, and the challenges faced by some countries in order to allow as many people as possible to gain access to football, and to make progress within it,” Infantino told fifa.com.

“I was also pleased to see the level of commitment of governments that believe in football and its development projects. It opens up prospects for cooperation and gives us even more enthusiasm in our daily work with our member associations."