By Dhammika Ratnaweera
The 6th Gazprom Football for Friendship International Championship participated by the Dinuka Bandara the 12 year old footballer from Sri Lanka was held at the Sapsan Arena Stadium in Moscow. Dinuka Bandara, in his role as a goalkeeper played in the team ‘Lion’ alongside players from Singapore, Chile, Bahrain, South Africa and Armenia. Even though he played extremely well, his team fell short in the qualifying match. Dinuka got this rare chance through Global Football for Friendship(F4F) social programme.
The F4F programme, supported by Gazprom and FIFA aims at developing youth football and a healthy lifestyle as well as promoting tolerance, open-mindedness and respect for different cultures and nationalities between children from across the globe. This year, the F4F programme has expanded to 211 countries and regions
Speaking about his participation in the International Championship Dinuka Bandara said, “I am happy to have been given the opportunity to participate in the Football for Friendship programme in Moscow. The programme has helped me to make a lot of friends from different countries and play football with them. The 3 day training programme before the championship has helped me to improve and learn new football skills which I will use in my future matches. The Championship was very exciting and I am happy to have performed well for my team. This has been an amazing experience and I look forward to participate in more tournaments in the future”
In the training camps, called International Friendship Camp, the young ambassadors were sorted into teams of different cultures and interacted with kids from 211 countries and regions. They also got an opportunity to take part in master classes and lectures conducted by renowned dignatories.
The Friendship Camp also saw the activation of The International Children’s press center, participated by the young journalists who reported on the activities of the day. The journalist were also a part of master classes conducted by leading media channels, which taught the young journalists how to report.
The training days also focussed on the ecological initiatives, supported by F4F. These initiatives which were explained through special lectures were aimed to make the young ambassadors aware and alert about the problems of the environment.
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