David Cameron and Michael Owen kick off football scheme in Afghanistan

PM and footballer launch scheme to give training in England to young Afghan talent after sharing bunk bed on seven-hour flight to Helmand

David Cameron shared a military bunk bed with former England player Michael Owen on their flight out to Afghanistan to promote a new football partnership aimed at boosting national spirit in the war-torn country.

During a fleeting visit, the prime minister and Owen met troops separated from their families at Christmas on a dusty makeshift football pitch at Camp Bastion, the military base at Helmand.

Owen joined Cameron to announce a new Football Association initiative which will help the country’s premier league by inviting talented young players to train at St George’s Park, England’s new national training centre.

It is part of a drive to foster national spirit in Afghanistan after 12 years of warfare.

Cameron and Owen arrived at the base on Monday morning and left within 12 hours, after watching a football match and eating with troops in the mess tent. Cameron also visited the remote Forward Operating Base Sterga 2, which overlooks the Helmand river.

On their seven-hour flight to Helmand on a military C17 plane, the prime minister and footballer were forced to share a tiny cabin with just one bunk bed – with Cameron choosing the top berth.

The footballer said the noise of the engine was too loud to hear if Cameron snored but said his night “wasn’t the best”.

Asked how it was to share with Owen, the prime minister described his companion as “charming”.

“He’s a very nice guy and it was interesting to reflect on his footballing career and now he’s putting a lot back into helping others and I think that’s a really commendable thing,” Cameron said.

The prime minister told Sky News the partnership between the FA and Afghan sporting authorities could have “an immense ability to bring people together, bring countries together and as we leave Afghanistan we are not leaving it alone in the world”.

“We are going to go on funding its armed services, we are going to go on supporting its development. We are going to be helping it have a football league,” he said.

Cameron’s visit could be his last at Christmas, as the bulk of Britain’s 5,200 troops left in Afghanistan will be coming home this year, after a 12-year presence in the country.

They will hand over to Afghan forces to keep the Taliban insurgents at bay, despite worries over whether the relatively new army and police forces have enough training and equipment to deal with the threat.

However, Cameron insisted Britain will stick to the deadline of bringing out all fighting troops by the end of the year.

“We’ve been very clear that after the end of 2014 there won’t be British troops in a combat role, and there won’t be anything like the numbers there are now,” he said.

“That is what I said in 2010 and we are on that track and we are sticking to that track. What we’ve done in that time is train up a hugely capable Afghan …read more