Abkhazia Institute for Social and Economic Research

The Presidents of FIFA and UEFA Joseph Blatter and Michael Platini will spend the days of 17-18 October in Tbilisi. The official webpage of the Georgian Football Federation reads that “this visit is to fully support the work done by the Georgian Football Federation (GFF) for the last two years and its strategy.”

The program of the Blatter-Platini will be quite full: they will visit the technical center ‘Saguramo’ under construction now and get familiar with the football development project, which the Georgian Football Federation is implementing with the support of the president of Georgia and the government. Besides, the FIFA and UEFA presidents will have meetings with high officials of the Georgian government.

“The visit of Blatter and Platini is a big honor for our federation and our country. This is not only the support of the course we have chosen, but clear proof that these two international organizations welcome and absolutely support tight relations between the Georgian Football Federation and the Georgian government,” stated president of the GFF Nodar Akhalkatsi.

On October 17 the presidents of FIFA and UEFA will attend the Georgia-Scotland match at Tbilisi’s national stadium. The team coached by the German Topmoller has already lost their chance in the Euro championship 2008 qualifying round; however, the Scots are leading the group and have a real opportunity to go through to the final stage. Despite this, Georgian fans are sure that the October 17 match will end in a desirable way for Georgians. At the end of the qualifications tour a Georgian team which has no chance for advancing in the group wants nevertheless to be able to say that they created some hard moments for the favorites of the championship. Thus, Scotland, the team which beat the World Cup runners up France two times, should not expect an easy ride. Hence, it is not difficult to predict which side Platini will take on the Tbilisi match.

Before that match at home the Georgian team has an outgoing game in Genoa on October 13 against Italy. Topmoller has announced the squad for both games about ten days before. The misfortune of the German coach was much talked about before and this tradition is not over. Herr Klaus has not managed to gather an optimal squad for two years due to the injuries sustained by Georgia’s top footballers. Even now, before the upcoming matches, two leaders – Kakha Kaladze and Levan Kobiashvili – pulled out from the squad. Two days before the joint training before the Italian match Mate Ghvinianidze and Davit Mujiri got injured.

“This is my (mis)fortune that I never manage to gather the whole team. I wanted us to play against world champions with our optimal squad, but, unfortunately, we have not managed it yet again,” Topmoller said.

If injuries are the reason for the absence of these four players, one of the best forwards of the Georgian team Aleksandre Iashvili was not summoned by the coach at all. He explained this decision by saying that wanted to observe young footballers in those matches. It means that the German coach is preparing a team for world championship 2010 qualifications. Meanwhile, Topmoller pointed out that on October 17 he plans to fight for a three-point victory by all means and Georgia truly has the strength to achieve it.

http://www.georgiatoday.ge/article_details.php?id=3706