SINGAPORE - The Football Association of Singapore (FAS) has on Thursday launched an updated grassroots manual that aims to promote fun football for children aged six and above.

The manual is conceived up FAS technical director Michel Sablon. And the Belgian, who was appointed in April, hopes the book can help teachers and coaches involved in grassroots and youth development with the central goal of getting children to enjoy learning to play the game.

The 67-year-old, who previously helmed Belgium's Olympic squad and was also the assistant coach of the Belgian national team that reached the 1986 World Cup semi-finals, was credited with the blueprint for his country's youth development system that groomed the likes of Romelu Lukaku and Eden Hazard.

Sablon said: "The grassroots coaching manual will help grassroots coaches to make football fun for kids. It will provide them with fun football games that are appropriate for the various age-groups while helping children to not only pick up but also master basic skills such as running, climbing and general coordination.

The revamped grassroots programme will be implemented with the FAS Cubs programme and launched at the Jalan Besar Stadium this Saturday.

The Cubs programme, spearheaded by FAS vice-president Bernard Tan, is a project to get more children to learn to play football. This is in response to a FAS survey of primary school pupils done last year that found that nearly one in two children want to play football. But only 5.9 per cent of boys and 1.6 per cent of girls actually do.