New era for Johnny Warren Football Foundation

The Foundation was established with the assistance of the NSW Government in 2005 to honour the memory of Australian soccer legend Johnny Warren, who died after a long battle with cancer late in 2004.
The Foundation?s aim is to develop the football skills of boys under 13 and girls 13-17 years of age. Primarily to nurture talented juniors with the long-term goal of providing future generations of Socceroos.
Hastings has replaced foundation chairman Andrew Kemeny, who has taken on the chairman?s role at A-League club Sydney FC.
Hastings is chairman of the Mortgage Wisdom (Australia) Finance Group, and Managing Director of a finance company. He is also a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.
Mr Hastings has a strong football background, having been a long-serving chairman of two-times National Soccer League champions the Wollongong Wolves, where he also instigated Wolves junior teams for males and females.
He has also served Soccer Australia in a number of capacities, including on its finance committee and player relations committee.
He is one of several new high-level business appointments to the Johnny Warren Football Foundation board. The other new faces are Westfield?s Carlo LoGuidice, the National Australia Bank?s Manuel Xipolatitas and Steve Warren from AIG Australia.
The board includes David Flaskas from Grand Slam International, who manages some of Australia?s most prominent sports people, SBS sports commentator and football icon Les Murray, Warren?s nephew Jamie Warren and representatives of the NSW Government, NSW Department of Sport and Recreation, Football NSW, and Football Northern NSW.
?I am tremendously honoured and excited to have been given this responsibility,? Hastings said.
?We?ve got a very strong and committed board that is determined to ensure the Foundation makes a major contribution to junior football in NSW, and to the future strength of the national team.
?Johnny Warren had a deep love of the Brazilian style of football, and always tried to instill in young players an appreciation for the game?s beauty.
?He also stressed the need to develop the skills in young players, before they reached the day-to-day grind of club football, and that is certainly the approach the Foundation intends to follow.?
Hastings said the new board would be holding a strategic planning meeting this week to redefine its objectives and how these should be achieved.
?We genuinely want to identify young players with potential to play at the highest level, and to provide them with improved training camps where they can build the foundations to attain world-class skill levels.?
He said the Foundation was determined to be an integral part of the Australian football development program.
?I believe we need to position our development programs within the football system so we work with all current bodies in enhancing the development of young players.?