The National Award of Encouragement in the field of training people in sports was awarded today posthumously to the former Assistant Coach of the national football team, the late Ihusan Abdul Ghanee (Saanthi).

At the official National Day function held this morning in HA. Utheemu, Ghanee's brother, Ahusan Abdul Ghanee, accepted the award on behalf of his family. The award was presented by President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu.

Ghanee passed away on the night of March 22 last year after a courageous fight against cancer for around two years.

Ghanee was a coach who played a major role in the two greatest achievements in Maldivian football history. In that regard, he served as the senior assistant coach of the national team during both the match where the Maldives drew against South Korea in 2004 and when the Maldives won the SAFF Championship in 2008.

Having been noticed playing for the Majeedhiya School team and subsequently playing for the first-division club Youth Sports Club, Ghanee's greatest interest lay in coaching. Therefore, after retiring from playing at a young age, he joined the FAM to complete a coaching course. There, he was offered the job of assistant to Slovakian coach Jozef Jankech, who was preparing the national team for the 2002 World Cup Qualifiers.

Ghanee's first tournament with the national team turned out to be one where the Maldives achieved a historic result. Having previously lost 17-0 to Iran in the World Cup Qualifiers, the Maldives secured its first victory in the qualifiers of the world's biggest football tournament during that campaign. While winning 6-0 against Cambodia in Malé brought great joy to Maldivians, that team included players who had played alongside Ghanee at Youth. The first goal for the Maldives in that match was scored by Ali Umar, who had begun his career at Youth under Ghanee's captaincy.

After that, when the Maldives reached the final of the 2003 SAFF Championship, Ghanee was still Jankech's assistant. The following year, when Portugal's Manuel Gomes took charge of the national team, he also appointed Ghanee as his assistant. Looking at a single match, the greatest achievement in Maldivian football history was the match where the Maldives drew 0-0 against South Korea, who had finished fourth in the previous World Cup and were the strongest power in Asia at the time. Ghanee had a very significant contribution to the game plan crafted by Gomes to produce that historic result.

After Gomes, when Bulgaria's Yordan Stoikov coached the national team for about two years and took the team to the semi-finals of the 2005 SAFF Championship, the assistant was once again Ghanee.

However, Ghanee's most significant work with the national team began in 2007 when Jankech was brought back. FAM brought him back a second time with the major target of winning the SAFF Championship. In that endeavor, Jankech considered Ghanee to be his greatest helper.

Jankech was someone who prepared extensively, arranging his training plans, game plans, and player schedules very systematically. He entrusted those tasks to Ghanee. Consequently, Ghanee became not only an assistant coach but also the administrator of the national team. Furthermore, Ghanee acted as the intermediary who conveyed the players' needs from the coach to the FAM.

Later, upon transitioning to club coaching, when Club Eagles won the President's Cup in 2016, that team largely comprised young players to whom Ghanee had given opportunities. That was the first first-division trophy won by the club in Eagles' history.

Ghanee was also a coach who conducted coaching camps in many islands across the Maldives, bringing young players from various islands to Malé to provide them with opportunities to play football.

In addition to that, Ghanee also took on other important sports responsibilities outside of football during that period. Most notable among them was serving as the Chef de Mission of the Maldivian contingent that went to the Indian Ocean Island Games (IOIG) held in Réunion Island in 2015.

In those games, where the Maldives sent its largest number of athletes up to that point, the work done by Ghanee in a country with limited resources like Réunion was highly commended by the Olympic Committee. That tournament became the event where the Maldives won its first regional gold medal in a sport other than football. One of the people who most shared the joy of the proud moment when Hassan Saaid won the gold medal in the 100-meter sprint was Ghanee.

After that, he also served as the Chairman of the Sports Corporation, which was established under the Sports Act. However, his primary involvement was always in football. In that regard, he rejoined the FAM in 2017. His initial task at that time was to take the Under-19 national team to compete in the Youth SAFF Championship.

After serving as the Deputy Technical Director, he later assumed the role of Technical Director. In that position as well, he carried out notable, good work. The "Towards Future" program launched by FAM to develop young players was also introduced under Ghanee's supervision. In addition, the Youth League and Atoll Football Project were started and run by Ghanee. German coach Peter Segrt, who led the Maldives to win the SAFF Championship for the second time, was also brought to the national team upon Ghanee's recommendation.