News
Zeynal Kerimzadeh: The Football should be accessible to every child in our country!
Zeynal Kerimzadeh: The Football should be accessible to every child in our country!
The Interview with the founder of the children's football school "Gilavar FC" Zeynal Kerimzadeh.
The amazing story of one of the most extraordinary ideas of small business that has already been successfully implemented for more than half a year. The children's football school, for children from 3 years old was opened On February 17, 2018, in Baku. In the interview, we would like to know about the concept of the school, the idea of its creation and plans for the future of such non-standard and interesting direction.
- How did the idea of creating a children's football school "Gilavar FC" come about?
- In fact, from the business point of view, the name of the idea is not promising, especially for a bank employee with 11 years of work experience. (Laughs) All my friends and acquaintances, who were suspicious of this idea, tried dissuade me. All this time, my wife, Aysel inspired me, who always said that she would support me in any of my initiatives. By the way, she organized the whole opening ceremony and designed everything in our tones. Also, my mother and my sister shared my excitement from the moment of the emerging of the idea until to its realization, and I am so grateful to them for that. In fact, everything started when I was looking for a footbal school for my two-year-old son. As I'm a football fan, I really wanted my son move in this direction of development. My search was ineffective, and relatively normal schools began to accept children at the age of 6-7. Suddenly I realized that this is exactly what I want now - to create a unique, something unusual for my son. I realized that I need to be active and called on all my acquaintances who were somehow in contact with football, started reading about the experience of other countries on the internet, and learning different models of development. My friend and former footballer, as well as professional coach Anar Valiyev, helped me in the first stages of choosing the Coach's staff.
- What does the name of the school "Gilavar FC" mean for you and why didn’t you choose the football name for the school?
- I always wanted to leave my mark in the history of my country, no matter in what direction. For me, the name Gilavar, is the southern wind of my native city Baku. This is an association that will always remind everyone where this club came from and what its values are. The logo is designed with the drawing of a wind element by one of the foreign designing company. Many people on social networks have discussed our logo for a long time, comparing it with the logo of club Santos, but in spite a certain similarity, these are completely different motives. Being a fan of the Italian national team from 1994 and the Juventus club since 1996, I’ve decided to add an element of my favorite team to the logo. It turned out half Azerbaijani, half Italian logo. But I really admire him, and I hope that one day we will see him in elite tournaments.
- What are the main values of your school? How do you build relationships with children?
- We approach all our little football players with great care. As a father of two children, I always know how parents worry about their children and understand all their questions and comments. We are always working on improving the quality of our services and communication with both parents and children. Our coaches have been selected according to certain criteria; they have UEFA licenses to train children at this age category. Recently, we have successfully transferred the Ukrainian coach to work with children. This will have a very positive impact on experiences sharing and innovation in the Child Development Program. Our training is mixed, bringing together football, entertainment, games, and physical development. The important thing for us is the health of children, to instill love for sports, to create passion for victory, to achieve goals, teamwork and, most importantly, to think. Many people say that football is a physical game, but I am absolutely sure that those who get the desired result are the players who are able to think, analyze, and calculate the game and the movements.
- In your advertising materials it is said that you practice the Italian program in teaching of children, is it true?
- It's true (laughs). We actually have in reserve the program for the development of children's football at the age of 5-8 years, (which is) developed by the coaches of the Italian series "A" Mirko Mazzantini (ACF Fiorentina) and Simone Bombardieri (Empoli FC). Actually, we have many different programs that we combine depending on the age of the children. Also, we are constantly negotiating with foreign colleagues from other countries who also work with children at this age.
-What are the chances of the children who are involved (training) in your school?
- We are negotiating with some local clubs in order to transfer our children to their academy at a certain age. We also began to negotiate with some clubs from the CIS countries. We do not set ourselves the goal of working in more adult age categories, as this market is quite crowded and most professional clubs have their own academies. Our role is to be a football aggregate for children from 3 to 10 years. Next, fit out them in good clubs. We are the only club in this age category in the country that signs a formal contract with the parents on condition of training and further development of the child. We are number 1, because we know what the children and their parents want!
Is paid training justified itself?
- As one of my good friend footballer said, the football is paid all over in the world. Someone pays for training, someone with talent trains for free to pay for it in the future. In fact, we are also approaching to this scope. We charge only for cover our expenses for renting a stadium, pay salaries to coaches and administrative staff. I look at it as a hobby, the pleasure for which I have to pay. Presently there are no expectations and goals to earn on this. We have a program for the selection of talented children, which we hold once in a quarter and select the best for free training during a year. This is a very good motivator for parents and children. There is always a full house at our selections, and we give a chance to all who want to become a football player, but can’t in view of certain circumstances.
- What are your future plans ?
- We plan to grow up to the Academy, build our base and stadium, and develop football in the country for children and young people. At least I want the next generation of children to be able to see the performance of our team at the world championships and Europe. Recently, we started working with kindergartens and selected several partners for cooperation. This is a very interesting project, in which we involve both girls and boys. Our main direction for the next years is to open several branches of our school, to increase the number of kindergartens and partners and to work with primary classes of the schools. We pay great attention to the social part of the football, we are constantly working on giving to all children the opportunity to try themselves in football, to gather children from streets and navigate them to the more advanced and correct way. At that moment, we are developing the possibility of connecting to our classes’ children from boarding schools to give them a chance to try themselves in football. Football must be accessible to every child in our country.
"How many children do you train now?"
At that moment, almost 40 children are training in all age groups. There are paid and free among them. By the end of the year, we want to increase twice.
- What are the conditions of registration to your trainings?
- We are training on Saturdays and Sundays from 12:00 to 13:00 not far from the Ganjlik m/station/ We have 2 packages: once a week - 40 AZN / month, twice in a week - 60 AZN / month.
In addition, when you register 2 children from the same family, the second child instantly receives a 50% discount.
We will continue to strive (to try) to create more flexible payment terms and schedule.
Our contact number: 055 242 99 66
Address: st. Fatali Khan Khoyski 78. Near the Caspian Shopping Center.
Website: www.gilavarfc.az
- What would you like to say to those who are thinking about starting a business?
Of course, you need to act. If you believe in your idea, even when the problems appear and even the whole world will be against you, if you are ready to support it – then you will achieve results. The success comes to the strongest, self-confident and persistent people. Always decide for yourself and don’t listen to anyone.
https://www.azerifootball.com/ru/7/news/40493.html
