From business, to Albanian football and family life, President Duka in a different narrative

2025-02-14 11:58:00, Sport CNA

From business, to Albanian football and family life, President Duka in a

The President of the Albanian Football Association, Armand Duka, was invited this afternoon to the show "Rudina" on Tv Klan. In an interview unlike any other, President Duka discussed the positive developments in football in Albania, including the organization of international activities and the growth of infrastructure, while underlining the importance of this game for the entire society.

The head of the Albanian football government spoke about the continuous growth of the national team and the pride that this team brings to Albanians, while also sharing the achievements of girls' football in this program. He emphasized the commitment to increasing the number of children playing football and improving the conditions for them.

President Duka also mentioned the importance of events such as the “Golden Ball 2024” to motivate and promote Albanian football, while also talking about the national team mascot “Alban”. Among other things, President Duka spoke about his personal experience in business and the transition to sports, as well as shared his emotions about life as a grandfather of two grandchildren.

Football in Albania over the years – Beautiful and good things have been done and good things continue to be done. Football is the most beloved game in the world and in Albania even more so. It is almost like a religion. This puts us in even greater obligations to offer as many good things as possible. Without a doubt, football, being a game and very popular as a sport, has its critics. But we do our best for it.

Relationships with grandchildren – I am a grandfather, with two very beautiful grandchildren. Like all other grandparents who have very beautiful grandchildren. I am a grandfather to Lori, my daughter. While the son is not yet. The feeling of a grandfather is different from the feeling of a father. Maybe because we are much more mature now and when we had our children we were at a slightly more 'irresponsible' age, while now we enjoy them immensely.

People say 'honey of honey' but to me it seems more than that. I definitely love them very much, I often miss them, because they don't live with me. I don't know if I'm a good grandfather to them, but they are very good grandchildren to me. I work hard so that they are very connected to the country and everything because they live outside Albania.

They will definitely become football fans and I hope they will also play football. With football being discussed not only by me, but also by their mom and dad, I believe they will be interested in football. Whether they play or not, even if they play at an amateur level, I will be very happy.

Do you advise football to your grandchildren? – Football is a beautiful thing. I advise it to my grandchildren and every parent for their child. Because it is education. If they become good professionals and make a sports career, it is even better. But also for their health and education, the way to educate children through football is very good.

Especially in today's times where the presence of electronic games, phones, computers is very large and takes up children's time. If we offer them a green field, to play with friends and have fun with them, it will be very good for their education. If my grandchildren do this, I will be very happy. Football is health and education. If it turns into a profession, it is an added value for the child and his parent.

Is it easy to be a good footballer? –Football is very beautiful. Footballers have special and very good characteristics if you get to know them closely. Living in a team and in a collective makes them more tolerant, better, more communicative.

Of course, it has its difficulties and there are sacrifices to become a high-level footballer. At an age when friends go to clubs or have a nightlife, a footballer is deprived and has to maintain a regime and train. Football is difficult and beautiful and when you reach high levels it also brings benefits.

Gala Evening “Golden Ball 2024” – We have been organizing this event for about 3 years. Every community needs a final celebration for all the activity it has done in a year. And we have organized the evenings for the best of the year, and this year in collaboration with Ardit Gjebrean, whom I want to thank because it is the first time I have known him closely and he is a true professional who has helped us. We are very good at organizing football matches, sporting events. The entire staff of the Albanian Football Association is really very good, but when it comes to putting on shows, we don't say much.

So Arditi, together with his staff, fulfilled this. This year's event was different from the past. Much better organized, much more beautiful and that pleased our people. The purpose of this activity was really to thank those who have contributed to a year of football during 2024. To motivate those who were chosen as the best and to be a target for those who were not the best, but to fight to be in the next year.

And finally, to promote our game and to invite as many children as possible to join our game because this also completes the framework. The opinions from our community have been good about this organization and we will continue this and make it even better and bigger. With more people and at a better level. And to have winners and as much promotion for the game as possible. We want to show the world that we don't just play football, but we also put on shows. Even our girls who play football, when we see them dressed in dresses, are really beautiful and good.

Girls' football in Albania – It has changed a lot. We don't have a long history in girls' football. We started late, in 2008, and we have a large number of girls playing football. We have positive results with clubs and national teams. We have a well-organized national championship.

We have achieved a historic success so far with the Albanian champion, Vllaznia, who participated in the Champions League with opponents like Real Madrid, PSG and Chelsea. It was a beautiful thing for the girls who participated. With the national team we had positive encounters in 2024, we were ranked first in the Nations League group. There are really positive developments.

The goal of the entire football world is to equalize boys' football with girls' football in all aspects: in the number of participants, in prizes, in training conditions and the organization of teams. We are still not close to this goal, so we have a lot of work to do.

We have it in focus, we encourage it a lot. We directly encourage girls' football more than boys' football because we think that boys' football is consolidated while girls' football needs it. We encourage girls who play football, the teams, their organizational expenses. I think we are on the right track.

Jasir Asani's video message – Jasir has left important marks and important contributions in the European qualifiers. His goals, besides being very beautiful, were also very important for us to go to the European. Through him, I thank Jasir and all the guys.

I have thanked them, I thank them and I will continue to thank them all my life because they have given us emotions that you cannot experience in any other way. You can be a businessman, you can have wealth, you can do whatever you want, but the emotions that they have given us, at least to me and to many Albanians like me, you cannot experience in any other way. We have few events and happenings that make us proudly say that we are Albanians.

In the 90s, most of us were even hiding so as not to say that we are Albanians. Today we say it with pride. And a very important contribution to say it with pride has been the national team. Participation in Euro 2016 and the seal in 2024 that consolidated this thing. We have never done so many flags and Albanians together with songs and dances from all Albanian regions. And for this reason I want to thank the guys, the team and all the staff of the Albanian Football Association and those who have contributed.

Alban, the mascot of the Albanian National Team – The idea of ??the mascot was for the organization of the finals of the U-17 European Championship in our country. On May 19 is the opening match. In order to organize it as beautifully as possible, the idea of ??the mascot was also given. The name was decided by conducting a questionnaire among all Albanian fans. He was given the number 12, because he is the 12th player and represents those who support football, all fans.

We have one of the best number 12s in the world because the fans have never spared support for the team, regardless of the results. This kind of level of support, especially in recent years because once when we did not have positive results, the support was even lacking. But now the 12th player supports the team in every case and in every activity. Albani is an eagle, our national symbol. He is red and black, he was modeled by an agency and then evaluated by a commission. It is a beautiful thing and gives the message that we need to give, to represent the 12th player on the field.

Albani will also be in our first national team match against Andorra on March 24 at the “Arena Kombëtare” stadium, valid for the World Cup qualifiers. Albani will also be there at the European Under-17 Championship, which has the opening match on May 19 at the national stadium.

The draw will be held on March 31 at the “House of Football”. This important activity for Albanian football begins because it is the first time that Albania organizes a European Championship. The 7 best teams in Europe and Albania as the organizing country will participate in this activity. It is an important activity for European football, but more important for us. For a country like Albania, which has never organized an activity of this size and does not have the infrastructural capabilities to do larger activities.

So, will the mascot be with the young footballers for a few years? – This edition will certainly be as it is, maybe in the next edition there may be a recomposition, but staying with the national symbols of Albania.

How much has Albanian football changed? – Realistically, the period is long and the developments are great. If I go back to my beginnings, the change is extraordinary. At that time, from all perspectives, it was truly a modest federation. We should be grateful that it was small, that it existed as a federation. The change is extraordinary.

Two days ago we had a meeting, an analysis and the Secretary General at the time, Sulejman Starova, was also part of it. I asked him: How many people were in the federation at that time? He told me 12. 12 people with a very modest budget and today we are 180, with a budget more than 1000 times larger.

During this period, never before have international activities been held in Albania. Last year alone, we organized 13 international European activities in Albania, with 4 teams each. So, over 30 European teams participated in these activities. The same will happen in 2025. As a result of the experience, the trust of the European institution or even the positioning that the Football Federation has in that institution, it has been entrusted with the organization of the European Championship for 17-year-olds in 2025 and the European Championship for 21-year-olds in 2027.

These are more or less the changes that have occurred in Albanian football during this time, but to list them all, this show alone is not enough. This work continues, and not only in football, but in every field of life, the higher you go, the more difficult it becomes, the higher you set the bar, the more difficult it is to pass it. Now the difficulties are even greater.

If during this period the development steps have been very big, because the reality has been at the basic level, now, to make qualitative steps, we need even more expertise, professionalism, it is more difficult, because we try to compete with the developed countries of Europe. Now we are dissatisfied and have extraordinary criticism when we lose a match with Ukraine, once we were satisfied if we could get some points.

Have the claims increased? – In addition to all our objectives, in my mind and in the mind of all the Federation staff, the main objective is to have as many people playing football as possible. To have as many people playing football as possible, you have to create the conditions, and we have these conditions, perhaps better than many countries in the region. We have some things that perhaps no federation in the world has.

A child who wants to play football, we give him everything, uniform, balls, even the training fields for young ages we pay for so that we can have as many children in football as possible and this has given results, and we will continue to do so. With the objective of even more girls as I said, to organize better, to change the infrastructure. If we are going to see a match in 2000, the difference is big. We need an even bigger inventory, because if we add children, we need to add fields.

We are not very successful here, not for lack of support or our own funding. We have a project called “100 fields” and it finances even a private person or a club or municipality that has a space. But we lack these spaces, especially in the city of Tirana, where the population is very large. Last year alone we built 10 football fields, but more are needed. To get here, you need to have an example and the example is the players of the national team, that children, seeing the results, enjoying the game of the national team, get closer to football.

I have a friend who immigrated to America and both of his sons did not speak Albanian. I was very critical of him, how can you leave your children without speaking Albanian. They came to Germany to watch the National Team and from the day they were in Germany, they started speaking Albanian and coming to Albania. This is what makes an important event like the European Championship and the National Team.

Now we have a goal and we want to do something big. We know that it is difficult to go to the World Cup. We are facing England, the cradle of football, which is also on a good day, we are facing Serbia, Latvia, Andorra and why not, we will try. If we achieve this, we will all be very happy. Çunat and all of football has set the bar there and now it is difficult to pass it, but we will try.

Hard work, done year after year to get to where we are today... – Nothing comes by chance in life, those who think it comes by chance are wrong.

Coach Silvinjo's video message to the President – ??Silvio is the leader of the team and the success of 2024. He is a very correct and dedicated character. He is the coach who lives in Albania, unlike other foreign coaches we have had, he works 24 hours a day. For him, and for the team, the result did not come by chance. He, his staff and we always dream of the World Cup, they are working hard for this and I hope we achieve it.

Were you an economist in your early days? – And I still am. This kind of sense, this kind of culture acquired in school and work, has helped me, because management must have an economic sense. My initiative in the '90s to do business, who knows if being an economist had an impact. If I'm not the first in Albania, I'm in the top 10. I'm the child of two teachers and both of my parents in '91 when I started doing this and the business at that time was just a trade of buying and selling.

When I started doing business, my mom got upset and told me: You can't do this, because you're not a matrapaz, buying cheap and selling expensive. It was a shameful thing, because she called it a matrapaz. The first years were very difficult, they became even more difficult in 97. In those wars and battles, we grew and perhaps became stronger, not only me, but everyone who took the initiative to do business, because the '90s were very difficult.

In 1993, when we created Aiba and bought a state-owned company that produced livestock feed from the state, it was the first state-owned company in Albania to be bought by a private company. I actually didn't want to, my brother insisted on buying it, I was afraid, because I was thinking about that year '44 when they came back and took the money and tortured and imprisoned those who owned the businesses. But my brother pushed me that this has now changed and we are in a different order, that capitalist and thank God it continued like this and here we are.

How did you get into football? – The connection with football was precisely business. We are a sports family since my father, who was a football player and coach, my brother was a volleyball player for over 20 years with Erzeni. After he left volleyball, we sponsored and managed Erzeni's volleyball team for some time. Then, always for business reasons, we got closer to Erzeni and Teuta. I became part of the sports community.

The Football Federation at that time was actually proposed to me by the former president of Vllaznia, my friend, who is no longer alive, Myftar Çela. He told me, seeing the sense of management in business: why not be the president of the Football Federation? It's not that I campaigned or suffered to become the president of football, because it was something easy and almost no one wanted to do that job. I didn't think at that time that it was such a demanding thing and that it would take so long and take me so much time.

Now, when I meet someone else, I have friends of mine who become club presidents, like Gaz Demi, who took over Partizan. I told him that if you get into football, it's hard to get out, because the emotions that football gives you are hard to have in other fields.

Since 2023 you have been UEFA vice-president & chairman of the Media Committee. What about UEFA president? – I do not have the objective of being UEFA president. Albania has changed, its positioning in football in Europe. In 2002, when I became President of the Football Federation, my colleagues there or the Executive Committee, I do not know if they ever shook my hand. Today the Albanian Football Federation is represented in UEFA by over 20 people, in different committees.

Our referees officiate matches at the Conference League and Europa League group levels, we have 5 delegates at Champions League matches, we have referee observers, we also have the president as vice-president of the European Football Association, UEFA. I believe this dignified representation in the team is a good thing for Albania, not only with the vice-president, not only because we will receive benefits, but with all the contributions, it gains experience and organizes even better things.

A message for young people – My message is for parents: Trust and encourage your children to play football. We are ready to do our best, we are experts, we have the conditions, we have very good projects. Your encouragement is enough, the desire and passion of the children is not lacking, because everyone loves football, so that we can raise children as healthy as possible in terms of sports. /FSHF