Chad Inaugurates Maiden FIFA Arena Pitch

Chad has become the latest African Member Association to benefit from

the FIFA Arena Project with the inauguration of a state of the art mini-

pitch on Wednesday in Koumra, a city in the Southern part of the

country.

Installed at School 15 in Koumra, this facility is the first-of-its-kind in the country and gives the Chadian Football Federation (FTFA) a quality

facility, joining the 142 FIFA Arenas already inaugurated worldwide to date.

The inauguration marks the beginning of a large-scale commitment: the Chadian government has pledged to eventually install 23 FIFA Arenas across the country, one per region.

The Koumra FIFA Arena is therefore only the first step in a vast national project dedicated to Chad’s youth, aimed at giving children in every

region equal access to safe, quality sports facilities.

An Infrastructure Serving Young People in Koumra, a city that until now

had no other sports facility of this kind, the new FIFA Arena will benefit

around 5,000 children. It will allow them to play football in a safe,

accessible, and free environment.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by numerous dignitaries

Including, Mr. Naïr Abakar, Chad’s Minister of Youth and Sports; the

leadership of the Chadian Football Federation and its members; Mr.

Gelson Fernandes, FIFA Deputy Chief of Member Associations; Mr.

Franciny Samba-Malanda, Regional Development Manager; and Ms.

Karishma Inayat, FIFA Arena Project Manager.

“Every girl and every boy who wants to play football deserves to be able

to do so in a safe place, where everyone can learn, play, and grow.

That’s the whole purpose of the FIFA Arena project: to make sure that

generations of children around the world, especially those from

disadvantaged urban and rural areas, get the chance to enjoy and play

the sport we all love,” Gianni Infantino, FIFA President

said that talent is everywhere in Chad. Our responsibility is to give it a pitch to express itself on. With this first FIFA Arena in Koumra, we are launching

a new momentum: giving our young people quality facilities to play,

improve, and turn every pitch into a space for the future,” Naïr

Abakar, noted.

“The refoundation of Chadian football requires concrete action for our

youth. This first FIFA Arena in Koumra is proof of that: giving our

children a safe pitch means laying another building block in rebuilding

our football, from the grassroots all the way to the national team,” observed

Tahir Oloy Hassan, President of the Chadian Football Federation

This first FIFA Arena offers the children of Koumra much more than a

pitch: It a quality, safe, and durable facility that finally allows them to

play football in the best possible conditions. And we are proud to

inaugurate it here in Chad, a country where youth is at the heart of our

priorities. This is exactly the spirit of the FIFA Arena project: giving every

child, wherever they are, the chance to play, anywhere in the world,” Gelson Fernandes, FIFA Deputy Chief of Member Associations, Regional Director for Africa and the Caribbean

Other Africans MA’s to have benefited from the FIFA Arena project

include Algeria, Comoros, Djibouti, Gambia, Liberia, Morocco, Niger and

Rwanda.

Officially launched at the 75th FIFA Congress in Asunción, Paraguay, in

May 2025, the FIFA Arena project builds on the commitment made by

FIFA President Gianni Infantino at the Sport and Sustainable

Development Summit in Paris, aimed at expanding access to football

World-wide.

With a goal of 1,000 mini-pitches by 2031, the programme is being rolled

out across FIFA’s 211 member associations, creating safe, accessible,

and free spaces for children to play, particularly in the most

disadvantaged communities.