© EuroFootball.com
After the sponsor from Germany and the visit to the "Wolfsburg" club abroad, the Lithuanian Football Federation (LFF) seeking partners received an invitation from the Middle East - proposing to hold the 2013 and subsequent Baltic Countries Football Cup in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The authors of this idea - the German company "People & Sports" cooperating with the LFF - organized a trip to the UAE last week to inspect potential competition venues and conditions. Lithuanian Football Federation President Julius Kvedaras and LFF national teams department manager Robertas Tautkus also traveled with German company representatives on this long journey.
After more than 6,000 kilometers (one way) of travel to the emirate capital of Ras al Khaimah, LFF representatives with the entire delegation inspected the football stadium and training base, hotels, other facilities needed for organizing competitions, and met with the local football club "Emirates Club" leader Sheikh Ahmed bin Saqr Al Qassimi.
According to R. Tautkus, in order to organize such a tournament, a lot of "homework" needs to be done, so during this visit, meeting after meeting followed. "It's not just stadiums and training fields, but also accommodation conditions, medical requirements. Contracts with carriers, accommodation services, sports equipment, insurance companies are necessary for FIFA to recognize the tournament," explained the manager of the LFF national and U-21 teams.
According to the tournament concept, Lithuanian, Latvian, and Estonian football players would participate in the competition without competition from the United Arab Emirates national team. The tournament's official carrier would be the German airline "Lufthansa," the hotel chain - "Hilton," and the broadcaster - "Eurosport" or "Al Jazeera Sports," with several other sponsors contributing.
The first tournament would take place from May 23-30, 2013, and the next two in 2015 and 2017. "If the tournament took place next year, it would be like a training camp for our national team before the World Cup qualifying match on June 7th against the Greek team," said R. Tautkus.
According to him, representatives of the "People & Sports" company will submit a specific proposal to the federations of all three Baltic countries next month regarding the upcoming Baltic Cup competition, and then they will decide together whether to move the tournament to the UAE.
The renewed national team tournament that started between the wars and was later resumed for the Baltic countries used to take place annually for some time, and since 2000, it has been held every two years.
The last competition took place in 2010 in Kaunas, and this year, from June 1-3, it will be held in Estonia. With the updated format of the cup tournament, the Finnish national team will also participate.
