Young Ambassadors selected to represent Malaysia

IMRAN ZAKARIA, 16, and 12 year old Lauren Hoh have been selected as Malaysia’s representatives at the global Football for Friendship (F4F) social programme. Backed by Gazprom and FIFA, F4F aims at developing youth football and a healthy lifestyle as well as promoting tolerance, open-mindedness and friendship among children from across the globe. Malaysia is joining for the first time and will participate along with 210 countries and territories in all.

Imran will join young coaches from around the world in Moscow in June 2018. They will be a part of the 32 international teams and train the young footballers who will face each other in the Gazprom F4F Championship in Russia. The friendly tournament aims to bring together children from around the world and celebrate the unifying spirit of football. Imran will act as a young coach for one of these teams and train the 12 year-old players in his team for the championship.

Lauren will act as the young journalist and cover all the local and global activities of F4F as part of the International Children’s Press Centre. She will also spread awareness on the Nine Values (friendship, equality, fairness, health, peace, devotion, victory, traditions and honour) of the F4F programme.

Imran and Lauren will also participate in the Sixth Football for Friendship International Children’s Forum, which will allow youngsters to meet their peers from other countries, share their experiences, and discuss with famous footballers and journalists on how to promote key values of the F4F Programme around the world

The sixth season of the F4F programme will conclude with a visit by the participating children to the opening ceremony and the first match of the FIFA World Cup 2018.