Omdal urges HatTrick help

Substantial funding
Established in 2003, and covering a four-year period between 1 August 2004 and 31 July 2008, the HatTrick scheme has seen UEFA commit substantial funding to its 52 national associations, with grants of up to €1.7m available. Speaking at the 5th UEFA Women's Football Conference in Oslo last week, Omdal said: "This money is available for each association to help invest in football infrastructure - be it refurbishing a stadium, office or training centre, or for development and education programmes."

'Push things forward'
Addressing delegates from all but one of UEFA's 52 associations, Omdal, the honorary president of the Norwegian Football Association, continued: "It's important that each of you know about this so you can push things forward if things aren't happening at your association. There's an opportunity for funding the long-term training of referees, for example. However, you have to qualify your application in a proper manner so it can be considered by the HatTrick board."

Training centre
Only this month, the Romanian Football Federation opened a new national training centre which was partly funded by a €1.6m HatTrick donation. The first part of the project consisted of building two football pitches with floodlights, a stand of 800 covered seats and a fully-equipped dressing-room area. The building of new pitches, specifically mini-pitches, is also a fundamental part of the assistance programme - with UEFA committing to pay for the installation of one in each of its member countries.

'Fantastic tool'
"As part of UEFA's 50th anniversary celebrations, every national association had CHF1m available to implement a mini-pitch programme in their country," Omdal continued. "So far I think around 37 countries have taken this on board - meaning 15 or so have failed to do so. It's a fantastic tool to make unorganised football organised."

Boom
Mini-pitches obviously encourage small-sided games, something Omdal deems vital to the grassroots sector. He said: "Everyone agreed at a UEFA Youth Conference in Stavanger ten years ago that it should be mandatory for children under 12 to play games with a maximum of seven players a side. When this was implemented in some countries the participation exploded - doubling many, many times.

'Better players'
"We know from the girls' leagues in the United States, where they often play three-versus-three, and in Spain, that this helps improve players," he added. "The smaller the games we can organise, the more girls we will have playing. We will also have happier and better players because the involvement in a small-sided game is a different world to what it is playing eleven against eleven."