NEW DELHI, Sep 19: The All India Football Federation (AIFF) is set to organise an International Virtual Conference for coaches from September 28-30.
The three-day conference will feature sessions by several top-level speakers including men’s national team head coach Igor Stimac, Phil Brown, Thomas Dennerby (India U-17 women’s national team coach), Basir Mohamed (senior manager, FIFA coaching development department), Dawn Scott (high-performance coach, FA UK), among others.
“The conference is based on various aspects, such as youth football, women’s football, media, scouting and coach education, where an instructor from the FIFA Coach Education department will be there,” AIFF head of coach education Savio Medeira said during a chat with AIFF TV.
“On the last day, we have planned a master class with two of the best coaches — national team head coach Igor Stimac and Phil Brown,” Medeira added.
For the first time ever, the attending coaches will be accorded credits as part of the new revalidation process introduced by Medeira.
“I want to kick off by giving credits to the coaches who are attending the seminar. This conference will be for C, B, A and Pro-license at the moment because these certificates do not have revalidation.
“The revalidation will start from C, B, A and Pro. Along with my coach educators and department, we would like to start by giving them points and accepting as CPD (Continuing Professional Development), which is needed by coaches for refreshing themselves.”
Under the new system, the coaching licenses will fall under a validity period and will need to be renewed periodically.
“Revalidation is very important for us. It’s long overdue. To have a stronger coaching convention criteria there has to be revalidation,” he explained.”
Coaches with C Certificate, B, A and PRO diploma who have finished the courses will receive a license, much like a Smart card, where the validity of four years will be mentioned. So every four years, each coach will have to attend refresher courses, which will be shown to them.
“CPD is vital if we want to keep up to the AFC’s A-Level Coaching Convention. CPD does happen everywhere else in the world and it is a big challenge to start it here.” (PTI)