Remote Seminar in Football for the Blind

The Oman Paralympic Committee organized a sports symposium via video communication to discuss ways to develop football for the blind with Arab participation, with the aim of identifying the latest developments and innovative solutions for the development of blind football. And speaking at the symposium were Dr. Mansour bin Sultan Al-Touqi, head of the Omani Paralympic Committee, Adnan bin Mubarak Al-Uwaidi, a member of the Omani Paralympic Committee, and Younis Khatibi, the coach of the national team and his assistant Asaad bin Saif Al-Dhahali.

A number of specialists and those interested in blind football from the Sultanate, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar participated in the symposium’s activities. The symposium included many topics, including a review of the history of football for the blind, the beginning of the game in the Sultanate, the mechanisms for its dissemination and development, and the importance of introducing modern games for people with disabilities.

The symposium also touched on the experience of the Omani Paralympic Committee in cooperation and partnership with the private sector, as the Sultanate is one of the first countries that popularized the blind football team in the Arabian Gulf.

The symposium discussed the appropriate training mechanisms that have been developed in the Sultanate for the blind, in addition to reviewing the most important basic skills of the game and the foundations of its training by watching a detailed visual presentation of the modern exercises.

The symposium also reviewed a number of successful international experiences in spreading the game, including Turkey’s experience in giving young blind people the skills of the game, and the gains achieved by training young people in preparing age groups and organizing a general football league for the blind. The symposium discussed a number of creative ideas and finding innovative solutions that would enable institutions and bodies to provide an appropriate and stimulating environment for the blind to practice sports, with the aim of developing competencies and sports leaders in the field of blind football.