Anchored in the core values of inspiring excellence, instilling innovation and the passion for football education, creating future leaders and leadership by example, the AFC Academic Centre of Excellence will commence with the delivery of two main programmes – the AFC Football Management Certificate (FMC) and the AFC Football Management Diploma (FMD).

Both the FMC and FMD are open to all 47 AFC Member Associations (MAs) and five Regional Associations (RAs), Asian football and independent stakeholders, each designed in partnership with the AFC’s academic partner – the renowned Football Business Academy (FBA) based in Switzerland.

In his message to prospective participants, AFC President Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa said: “Success on-the-pitch is only guaranteed by our dedicated work off-the-pitch; and all our work off the pitch is guaranteed by the professionalism and pursuit of excellence of each individual involved in our beautiful game.

“With the launch of the AFC Academic Centre of Excellence, the AFC is committed to nurturing the future leaders of Asian football by placing a strong emphasis on interactive learning, with a vision and mission to enable football professionals to acquire the knowledge and skills relating to analysis, problem-solving, creativity and decision-making required in today’s dynamic world of football business.

“We truly hope this series of educational programmes will allow the Asian football family to maximise the potential of our football professionals, and at the same time, develop the capabilities of our future leaders in the football community to hand over this great game in even better shape than we inherited it.”

The FMC and FMD will provide a dynamic and comprehensive curriculum while nurturing football-specific skill sets and industry knowledge to enable future leaders to plan, execute and monitor the day-to-day operations in all aspects of football management.

The programmes will offer insightful modules which include the Organisation of World Football, International Sports Federations, Strategic Management, Financial Management, Income Generation, Media and Communications, Event Management, Operational Management, Human Resource Management, Child Safeguarding, Social Responsibility, Sports Law and Club Licensing.

The FMC will be held over five months, comprising five live online sessions with participants undertaking 290 hours of study across nine core modules, while the FMD will be conducted over 13 months, consisting of five live online sessions over 12 core modules held over 460 hours of study.