Speaking to the-afc.com ahead of the AFC Asian Coaches Night celebrations at the Marriott Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, where the Uzbekistan Football Federation Director of Coaching will be one of 38 coaches receiving the AFC Gold Service Award, Akramov said:

“Right after players, coaches are the main protagonists of football but they are often in the shadow of footballers.

“But coaches are the teachers, the counsellors, the psychologists and the managers of the industry and now is the time to recognise their important role.

“For more than 15 years now we have been engaged in coach education. I think we have completed the transition from amateur to professional education and our standards are comparable to those in Europe.

Akramov explained that the standard of coaching in Uzbekistan has improved considerably over the years, factoring in specific local conditions to what has been described as an ‘East European-style schooling.

And the Central Asian republic has also embraced numerous initiatives and development programmes instigated by the AFC, most recently Asian Coaches Year.

“Asian Coaches Year has been widely celebrated in Uzbekistan,” the 62-year-old stated.

“Most notably we held a coaching conference that had participants from Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Russia, Bhutan and Kuwait. Among the speakers were Akbar Imamhodzhaev, one of our most experienced coaches, and Farhad Magametov, the Director of the Professional Football League.

“Today the development of football in our country is well supported by the government, the teams and the clubs and we are showing good results by being consistently amongst the strongest in each event.

“Now, the Uzbekistan national team is preparing seriously for the AFC Asian Cup and we have set high goals.”