Can we get to know you a little?
Hello. We answered these questions together with Ms. Celeste Tchiama, Vice President at WAFF and currently leader of the Women working group. I'm Bogue Smolarek. I work for the European Amputee Football Federation. As a volunteer at Waff, I am part of the women's amputee football working group founded by Mr. Simon Baker in 2022.
Can you elaborate a little on how the Amputee Women's Football structure came about?
For several years WAFF board members had been working on the development of Women's amputee football. To make it more structured and move things forward, the Working Group was established in 2022.
What kind of studies and projects are you doing with WAFF President Arif Ümit Uztürk regarding the structure of amputee women's football?
I would like to clarify that the Women's Amputee Football Committee is within the WAFF Structure, meaning that all programs and development projects of the organization include women's amputee football. We are currently focusing on the World Cup in Colombia.
Can you give information about your cooperation with UEFA and FIFA regarding the structuring and dissemination of Amputee Women's Football?
These are two different structures. Since I work at WAFF, we cooperate with UEFA, which plays a financial and supportive role in our projects. As WAFF, we are in the early stages of our potential collaboration with FIFA.
Could you tell us about WAFF's founding purpose, vision, mission and goals? Waff's founding purpose:
As a whole, it is to organize national associations and federations around the world and establish cooperation with other global sports organizations, as well as to develop policies for the expansion, growth and stabilization of amputee football; Vision: to bring together nations from around the world to work towards a sport of greater impact and social inclusion, honoring the lives of the target group of players or practitioners.
Task: * To support people with amputations and other limb disabilities to integrate them into society through sports.
* Using amputee football to improve the quality of life of its players and increase access to opportunities for both genders. To make Amputee Football a high-performance sport that can elevate their nation's name, flag and anthem to the highest sporting level;
Goals: * To associate and promote sports worldwide by creating confederations compatible with sponsoring countries and the main sport; *Increasing the number of players, clubs, leagues and others; *To show more interest in sports worldwide,
* Global integration of all countries that practice Amputee Football,
* Establishing and developing cooperation and exchange relationships between traditional Football organizations;
What resources does WAFF use internationally?
WAFF cooperates with international institutions such as National Football Associations, Red Cross or Paralympic Committees.
What does WAFF do differently for World Women's Football Amputee?
The female amputee has a committee responsible for Women's sport in the World Federation, coordinated by one of the WAFF Vice-Presidents, but the organization of the World Cup is the collective responsibility of the Executive as a whole, with the participation of the Executive Board total. WAFF is a new experience for us, but our organization does not shy away from responsibilities and participation as a whole; We know that it will be an event that will open the doors for many countries to join the game immediately after it takes place; An event in less than a year, where the initial prediction was that at most 8 or 10 countries would attend, and to our biggest surprise, we now have almost 16 countries applying for their participation. This requires WAFF to define requirements and have the same level of organization as all activities approved by WAFF.
What are the reasons for the rapid growth of WAFF in Africa, Central and South America, and what kind of planning are you doing for women and girls in these countries?
The first is to say that since 2020 Amputee football has seen rapid growth worldwide. As for women, in Africa and America, games were played in some countries, albeit as entertainment and leisure, but with the establishment of the women's committee, it was also an opportunity for social inclusion and self-valuation, as well as for their health and well-being through sports. In Gender integration with the WAFF Vision, exchanges with women from other latitudes and mainly WAFF's joint work with National Federations and pre-established Competition Programs meant that more women could participate in the discipline.
Is there an age limit for the WAFF Amputee Women's Football Team and do you have any plans for school-aged amputee children?
Currently the age limit for professional amputee football in WAFF regulations is 16, this is at national level but each association may have different regulations. As WAFF we organize Youth Camps aged 7 and 7, which are football training camps for children with amputations and limb deformities. Camps are for children ages 5 to 16. Thanks to the growth of the discipline, we can see that in many countries there are projects for youth amputee football in Poland, England, Costa Rica, Palestine and Germany. I hope we can organize similar camps in Africa or Central America soon and further develop youth amputee football.
You said on your website that we want to create camps, leagues and future championships to attract more women and girls. What kind of projects do you plan to do to attract women and girls?
As you noted in the previous question, there is a large and rapid growth of the female gender, which means that WAFF, in coordination with the Women's Committee, creates mass projects for each member country to have: * Each member country has a number of participants who can internally carry out women-specific national activities:
* Working under the umbrella of national federations that are members of WAFF * Working with organizations that can sponsor in creating financing to carry out these activities; * To carry out gaming and exchange activities between countries and continents by participating in various activities carried out by continental federations; * And finally, organizing games or events on a national scale and even on specific dates for each national federation to mobilize more women and arouse the interest of children and their families;
In this way, as any player dreams of participating in highly competitive international events, there will be a need to build this program once bases are established at the national level; Leagues, Training Camp and Championships
What do you do with the Female Amputee Team? Can you tell us about new projects?
All countries with women's amputee football are currently busy preparing teams to participate in the 2024 World Cup in Colombia, but just like last year, they are preparing special events to celebrate International Women's Day on March 8. But the highlight will be the festivities on March 8, when each country or continent can organize different events to celebrate this event.
Can you give us some details about the organization you will organize on International Women's Day on March 8, 2024?
We invite every confederation, member, country and player to play matches, train and celebrate women's day. At this time last year, few countries held workshops, training or matches. I hope there will be more countries joining the initiative this year.
