FIFA President Gianni Infantino wished Suriname luck in their quest to reach their first FIFA World Cup™ in 2026 and confirmed FIFA’s commitment to working together with football authorities in the nation following a meeting with the new Surinamese Football Association (SVB) President Dayasankar Mathoera at the third session of the FIFA Executive Football Summits 2025 in Miami, United States. The Surinamese men’s national team is currently gearing up for the third and final round of Concacaf qualifying, which begins in September 2025. Mr Infantino praised the advances in Surinamese football in recent years and believes the team’s current quest to reach the 2026 finals can only aid the growth of the game. “It was a great pleasure to talk football with the President of the Surinamese Football Federation (SVB), Dayasankar Mathoera and understand how he plans on using his expertise and energy to maintain Surinamese football's upwards trajectory,” Mr Infantino said. “SVB has already come so far, and with the support of FIFA Forward 3.0 and the FIFA Talent Development Scheme, the pace of progress in terms of infrastructure growth and talent identification will undoubtedly accelerate. We also touched upon the topic of stadiums and how the FIFA Arena initiative for installing mini-pitches could significantly help in providing more playing opportunities for children. “We further spoke about Suriname's possible qualification for the FIFA World Cup 2026 and wished them luck for a journey that could inspire the future generation of footballers.”

Working together with FIFA, Suriname has made significant investments in grassroots football. One of the SVB’s flagship programmes, with support from the FIFA Talent Development Scheme, was the formation in 2023 of four Regional Talent Academies covering the capital city, Paramaribo, and regional centres in the East, South and West of the country. That work on Talent ID was expanded in 2024 across the Regional Academies with particular focus on the U13, U15 and U17 age groups. The SVB has also used support and funding from FIFA Forward to set up Suriname’s first professional football league, the Suriname Major League, which launched in 2024. Mr Mathoera was elected to the SVB presidency in May 2025 at a key juncture for the national team in their FIFA World Cup™ 2026 bid. Following his meeting with Mr Infantino, he outlined some of the challenges Surinamese football faces, from infrastructure to the arduous task of qualifying for the final tournament. “We have... talked about the opportunities to expand the capacity for spectators in the Dr. IR. Franklin Essed Stadium, as we want to expand the capacity with 2,000 more places for the spectators,” Mr Mathoera explained. “And a huge challenge is the rebuilding of the capacity of the André Kamperveen Stadium, a 60-year old stadium, where we want to take down the other part of the spectators’ area in the north, and there we want to re-establish new facilities, all within FIFA requirements, to get that stadium also approved as a FIFA stadium. “We also have the need for artificial turf fields in the suburb area in the districts, where we can facilitate the youngsters in, let me say, the regional competitions for the youth academy. They play the youth academies in five separate regions, and five regional associations are involved, but they are playing on grass fields, and we have (too) much rain in Suriname, so we have to re-establish small pitches for them as a new opportunity that FIFA provides us for the upcoming period, and we are sure we will make use of that.”