Malaysia Has Won The Bid To Host The Special Olympics Football World Cup 2014!

Special Olympic Malaysia (SOM) president Datuk Mohd Feisol Hassan said they are proud to be the first host of the event, which has the support of FIFA, Asian Football Confederation (AFC), FA of Malaysia (FAM) and the Olympic Committees of Asia and Malaysia.

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The dates have yet to be confirmed but it is set to be a nationwide event with Special Olympics Malaysia (SOM) hoping to organise the early rounds outside Klang Valley before having the final rounds in KL.

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"The Special Olympics International (world body) delegation inspected both countries late last year (October) and were quite impressed with what we have here," said Velappan at the soft launch in Putrajaya yesterday.

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"States are welcome to bid to host the competition. We expect to announce the finalised dates and competition schedules by March.

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"We will be hosting each of the five groups' preliminary games in different states to give more people a chance to experience the tournament.

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He said that several states, including Sabah, Sarawak, Kedah and Selangor, had applied to host the preliminary rounds (group matches). The knockout rounds and the final will be held in Kuala Lumpur.

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"We could host the event on a budget of RM20 million which would cover the basic costs such as providing the airfare, accommodation, internal transportation of the competing teams as well as preparing the competition venues.

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“We are in the midst of engaging top football personalities like David Beckham, Hidetoshi Nakata and other entertainers to help draw support to make this event a success,” said Velappan.

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The qualified teams are the United States, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Honduras, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, South Africa, Ivory Coast, Tanzania, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Romania, Slovakia, France, Poland, Russia, South Korea, China, Thailand, Bangladesh and host Malaysia.

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Youths above the age of 15 from 24 countries compete in a 11-a-side competition where six footballers with intellectual disabilities and five able Under-21 footballers on each team.

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Special Olympics Global Football has three goals:

Bring football to a total of 1 million Special Olympics athletes worldwide by the year 2015 Increase the quality of coaching our athletes receive Help our athletes build skills they can use on and off the playing field specialolympics.org

The goal of the Global Football initiative is to give more and more Special Olympics athletes the chance to play the most popular sport in the world -- football (soccer). The visibility and power of football will also help bring greater awareness, acceptance and respect for people with intellectual disabilities.

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Special Olympics Football during traditional 11- aside and Unified Football matches follow FIFA rules. However, the length of halves, substitution and overtime rules are defined by each Special Olympics Program organization. In 5-Aside and 7-Aside Football matches, some rule variations are: kick-ins from the touch line, throw-ins by the goalie, throw-ins by goalies cannot touch the other side of the half field until touched by a player first, and there are no off-sides.

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