Led under Saudi Arabia, the newly founded ‘South West Asian Football Association' (SWAFF) has elected the president of the Maldivian Olympics Committee, Mohamed Shaweed, as its senior vice president.
Shaweed who sits on the executive committee of the Asian Football Federation (AFC), finds himself in another influential post of an Asian football organization after contesting against the Pakistani football federation's president, Mahzoom Faisal.
The first congress of the association was held at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Football federation's president, Dr. Adel Bin Mohammed Ezzat' has been elected as the president of SWAFF, while the South Asian region's vice presidency was won by Subratha Dutta of India, and Western Asian region's vice presidency with Abdulla Al Junaibi.
A prominent businessman, Shaweed had exposed himself to the development of sports in 2007 with the establishment of VB Addu FC. Having been elected as the president of the Olympics committee in 2012, Shaweed had chaired the normalization committee that was established by FIFA to handle Football Association of Maldives (FAM) for one and a half years since 2014.
Shaweed has brought many developments to the sport of football in the Maldives. Under his wing, he has rebranded the football league of Maldives and increased the financial aid that the teams received, along with initiating atoll level football competitions, and helped to develop playing fields in a lot of islands.
Besides Saudi Arabia and Maldives, other member states of the SWAFF include Western Asia's Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and South Asia’s India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
The association's Constitution was passed Sunday with the competitions proposed by the committee to be shortly carried out. FAM's President Bassam Adeel Jaleel and General Secretary Hussain Jawaz had also participated in the congress.
The organization was developed with the approval of FIFA and AFC. SAFF has also declared that the federation does not find it a problem that their member states are to join West Asian teams in the new football federation.
“The nations of South and West Asia want to work with each other to grow football in the region, and to compete on a more equal playing field at future World Cup competitions and international tournaments,“ Dr. Adel Ezzat said in a press release released by the organization.
The SWAFF headquarters is to be located in Jeddah.
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