By Susil Premalal

Football Sri Lanka (FSL) will launch a three-year national team development plan in association with Qatar Football Association (QFA) and the Aspire Academy of Qatar.

This project will be a milestone in Sri Lanka football history where all national teams including women teams will be brought under one umbrella with uniform strategies of training plans to create a Sri Lanka way of playing football in the future.

Former Manchester City captain Andrew Morrison and Keith Stevens, a Scottish player with over 547 professional appearances in the English Football League, are in charge of this project.

Marcus Ferreira, who was the fitness coach during the 1995 Gold Cup triumph, has been appointed as the fitness coach.

Morrison and Stevens are in Colombo, observing and assessing the players, training facilities of the national team. Both coaches will travel with the team to a Qatar training camp from May 23 to June 3 and will accompany the team to Uzbekistan from June 4 to 14 for the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers. They will also support the local coaches in preparing game plans, assessments of players and analyse the games as an interim arrangement.

The senior management of FSL, both coaches and an expert group from Aspire Academy, will take part in a review and planning meeting in Qatar in which the final program is set to launch officially.

"I am extremely proud and humbled to introduce this project to the people of Sri Lanka as part of my duty to uplift the game I loved throughout my life. I also thank QFA president Shaikh Hamad bin Al Khalifa Al Thani, CEO of Aspire Academy and Aspire Foundation Tim Cahill for coming forward to support this project by covering all costs related. A special thank goes to the people of Qatar for supporting the people of Sri Lanka during these difficult times in the country," FSL president Umar Jaswar stated to the media yesterday held in Colombo.

A goalkeeping coach is set join the team very soon during this project and an official launch of the project is set to take place in July this year.

Main photo: (L-R) Andrew Morrison (Headcoach), FSL president Umar Jaswar and Keith Stevens (Assistant Coach)