Although geographically isolated by its highly mountainous territory, which has contributed to preserving its ancient culture, the Kyrgyz Republic has been at the crossroads of several major civilisations as part of the Silk Road and other commercial and cultural routes. Due to its mountainous nature, it is often challenging and time consuming to travel from one point to another in a territory reaching 200,000 square kilometres and totalling six million inhabitants.

For this reason, thanks to the support of the FIFA Forward programme with a contribution of USD 120,000, the Football Federation of the Kyrgyz Republic (FFKR), founded in 1992, has decided to purchase minibuses to support the country’s football clubs in their quest for more improved and secure mobility in line with the development of the Kyrgyz Republic Top League and of the clubs - one of the main goals of the FFKR.

Thus, one of the directions of the member association’s strategy is to improve the infrastructure of clubs, including providing the necessary transportation means that meet technical specifications, one of which is at least 18 seats. Providing motorised transportation to support the teams in their daily needs when they travel for matches or training activities will undoubtedly foster their clubs to organise more games.

FFKR has aimed to provide league clubs with minibuses for their needs in order to reduce their travel costs and give more opportunities for development of their youth teams through participation in the championships, tournaments and further improvement in a country where football is the most popular sport. Indeed, the intense support of the national team reached fever pitch at the ongoing AFC Asian Cup, where the White Falcons reached the Round of 16. That progress, along with the Kyrgyz Republic's national football team sitting 12th in Asia - and inside the top 100 globally - in the latest FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking, are clear signs that the efforts to develop football in the country are beginning to bear fruit.

Mederbek Sydykov, General Secretary of FFKR said: “With the help of FIFA, football in the Kyrgyz Republic has witnessed feasible development in recent years. We can already see the results of effective co-operation, such as qualifying for our first ever Asian Cup. In order to keep the pace of that development it is very important to support our stakeholders.

"The FIFA Forward Programme has given us a great opportunity to support our football league and clubs in particular by delivering minibuses, so that clubs can improve their logistics and travel conditions," Sydykov continued. "There is no doubt that this is a great step forward for the development of football in the Kyrgyz Republic."

As a result, eight clubs in the Kyrgyz Republic Top League have been provided with minibuses so far. With the support of the FIFA Forward Programme, major improvements are being driven onwards in this Central Asian nation.