IBSA Blind Football held a highly successful training weekend with blind players in Helsinki to boost the sport in the country.

The training weekend was held as part of the current IBSA Blind Football Development Project Europe, a five-year development initiative funded by UEFA.

In three training sessions held on Saturday and Sunday the players from the Finnish blind football programme were put through their paces and coached by an experienced trainer. All the players showed significant improvement and greater skills by the end of the event.

The Finnish blind football programme was set up two years ago by the Finnish Association of the Visually Impaired. In total between 30 and 40 male and female players have taken part in the programme in some way since its inception, and monthly training sessions are attended by around 15 players.

The training weekend in Helsinki enjoyed strong support from the Finnish Sports Association of Persons with Disabilities and the Football Association of Finland.

Plans are now in place to continue growing and expanding the programme to enable blind and partially sighted players from other parts of the country to take up the game, and to work together with blind football in Sweden on further development in the north of Europe. 

For more information on the IBSA Blind Football Development Project Europe contact [email protected].