Positive Meridian progress

The Meridian Project Board met in Barcelona on Tuesday as part of the UEFA-CAF Meridian Cup and Conference for a session described as "very positive" by the board's chairman Senes Erzik.

Positive feedback
The board assembled at the Princesa Sofia Gran Hotel, where Erzik was fulsome in his praise of the Meridian Project's recent achievements. "The feedback from both CAF and UEFA is very positive with regard to the implementation of the project," he told uefa.com as the hour-long meeting came to an end. "We have a very concrete project here, one that is very efficiently implemented and which has a new concept, a programme of education aimed at training the trainers."

Special gift
This year is CAF's 50th birthday, and to recognise the anniversary, UEFA has donated 81,000 African-made footballs to the confederation, an initiative welcomed by the Meridian Board. "This gift is very important," Erzik explained. "The donation has been made directly to the national associations - and through them to the schools. That means grassroots football education, and this is all over Africa. The African delegates all commended us with regard to the balls. This shows this project is really getting to the heart of grassroots football. That means youth players have the opportunity to grow up with the proper balls."

Universal coverage
The Meridian Project was founded in January 1997 and Erzik, who has been involved from the start, believes its recent overhaul is already reaping major dividends. "We previously had certain projects directly linking European associations to African associations, and also had our intermediary projects directed to certain countries' associations in Africa, but both of those probably covered only around 15 per cent of the continent," he said. "Now the project has a new concept focusing on education - teaching the coaches, administrators, referees and many, many more - we are covering everyone. This is the main difference, and I am delighted with that."