FIFA President Gianni Infantino has heard the ambitious plans to drive football forward in Guinea from the the newly elected Guinean Football Federation (FGF) President Aboubacar Sampil. A long-established figure in Guinean football, President Sampil was elected at the head of the FGF in early January 2024. His objective is to add impetus to the development of the game in the African nation, which saw the launch of the FIFA Football for Schools programme in April, the same month the country won the CAF African Schools Championship.

“I was delighted to meet the President of the Guinean Football Federation, Aboubacar Sampil, in Abidjan. He has clear plans for the direction in which he, and his team, want to take football in Guinea. He has my, and FIFA’s, full support in working towards those objectives,” said Mr Infantino, who met Mr Sampil in the Ivorian capital ahead of the opening game of the Africa Cup of Nations 2023. “Guinea, like so many African nations, is a football-loving country and has a lot of potential that needs to be given the opportunity to develop. That is what FIFA would like to see all over the world, and I’m sure that President Sampil's great experience in Guinean football will enable him to do that in his country, and spread the joy of our beautiful game to girls and boys at all levels.”

President Sampil plans on increasing the opportunities for young talents, and – with FIFA’s help - provide them with the facilities where they can flourish. “We are basing our vision of the future on three pillars: governance, competitiveness, and infrastructure. We talked about that briefly, but we’ll dig deeper into that in meetings in [the FIFA offices in] Paris or Zurich,” said President Sampil. “I think the FIFA President is ready to support us on those three main points.”