MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT HAVELANGE

FIFA has always attached great importance to the development of football among young people, for they represent the future of our game as well as the future of our planet. We have, for example, introduced the two FIFA World Championships for young players and also a systematic programme of development for young payers throughout the world, especially in the Third World.

All of these programmes have been most successful and satisfying. But we derive special satisfaction from the more recent introduction of the new FIFA Youth Fund, aimed at strengthening the links between football and the children of the world.

A central element in this new Fund is FIFA's cooperation with the worldwide organisation, SOS Children's Villages, which will become a main beneficiary of the Fund. This non-denominational organisation is committed to helping disadvantaged children in 125 countries, and thus perfectly correspond to FlFA's own global dimension.

I have had the pleasure of visiting SOS Villages in different countries and, as every other visitor, I have been captivated by the warmth and the dedication of the people who devote themselves to giving a decent life to the 200'000 children in their care.

FIFA intends to help the work of these Villages by providing material and logistical support, in relation to sport in general and football in particular. Some ways in which this is envisaged include:

1. SOS Children's Villages will be the beneficiary of the match next July between the World Champions, Brazil, and a FlFA World Selection, as has been played after each of the past three World Cups

2. SOS Children's Villages will receive football equipment from FIFA (footballs, clothing, shoes, etc.)

3. FIFA is planning to make available coaches and players to visit SOS Children's Villages to share the children's enthusiasm for the game and give them coaching advice

4. FIFA has engaged one of the world's most popular players, Jürgen Klinsmann, as a spokesman for the project.

In these and several other ways, FIFA will be not only giving direct assistance to SOS Children's Villages but also making its name and its aims known to a worldwide public, and also encouraging active local links between the Villages and our 193 National Associations.

We hope that the football community, which of course indudes the media, will give its full support to the new cooperation between FIFA and SOS Children's Villages.

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