The island nation’s need for football infrastructure was one of the main topics when the President of the country’s São Tomé and Príncipe Football Association (FSF), Domingos Monteiro, met Gianni Infantino at FIFA’s office in Paris, France.

The FSF President, accompanied by Vice President Adalberto Catambi, said that he wanted to upgrade the national stadium and provide facilities where football can be played at grassroots level while the FIFA President recalled his visit to the country in 2018.

“Among the topics we discussed were the logistical challenges the country faces and the upgrading of the national stadium, so that FIFA World Cup qualifying matches can again be played in the country,” Mr Infantino said. “We talked about how FIFA Forward can help in this regard and in the general development of infrastructure.

“The people of São Tomé and Príncipe have a great passion for football, as I witnessed for myself when I visited their beautiful country a few years ago. We will continue working with President Monteiro, and his team, to leverage various FIFA initiatives, such as the FIFA Talent Development Scheme, to help uncover and train talented players from this beautiful region of Africa, as well as bring more football opportunities for their people.”

São Tomé and Príncipe have so far played their CAF qualifying matches for the FIFA World Cup 2026™ in Morocco because the country does not have a stadium which meets the requirements for staging international games.

“The purpose of our meeting was in fact to talk about football - football and our country’s infrastructure,” Mr Monteiro said. “We told the President we actually need to build infrastructure, so we can have youngsters play and have the national team of everyone’s dreams in the future… We expressed the need to renovate our national stadium as well as smaller pitches for the kids to be able to play football after school.”

Mr Monteiro said he was delighted with the meeting and said that FIFA support was crucial for the FSF. He added that São Tomé and Príncipe were now competing regularly, something which was not always the case.

“FIFA is important for us, they’re the only funding partner that we have and that our country’s football has, so this meeting was extremely positive,” he said. “In terms of football, our country is growing. If you look into the past, we never competed, and now we do.

“We have started getting into tournaments, playing, winning and losing, but we always keep competing and also the general public kept growing with us, supporting the national team. So, our country is growing a lot when it comes to football.”