October 12, 2003	Sunday	Sha'aban 15, 1424

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LAHORE, Oct 11: Asian Football Confederation (AFC) has divided all its 45-member countries into six zones, for the effective implementation of Vision Asia plan, starting from the year 2004.

Notably, out of the total number of Asian countries, 43 have been divided into four zones but two countries China and India have been considered as individual entities on the grounds of their population and potential to succeed not only at the Asian but also at the international level.

However, countries like South Korea, Sri Lanka, Japan and some others, however, have protested against the AFC’s decision.

The other four zones include West Asia, South and Central Asia, ASEAN and East Asia.

The Vision Asia programme is introduced by AFC president Muhammad bin Hamam.

AFC has committed an annual grant of USD 2.5 million for the implementation of Asia Vision.

The programme is an ambitious strategic development plan to develop football in all the 45 Asian countries. The emphasis of the plan is on education and development to improve the quality and quantity of personal and staff of the different disciplines in it.

For the successful implementation of Vision Asia in all countries, it has been instructed to all the national associations to establish 10 departments and appoint professionals to run them.

The departments are national associations/club administration, marketing, grassroots/youth development, coach education, referees education, sports medicine, women’s football, futsal, media and information technology.

It has been clearly instructed to all national association to appoint a professional as head of these departments.

Pakistan Football Federation has appointed four officials for different departments, but have only released the name of Arif Rahim who will be resposible for marketing.