Football-‘Youth Coaches Specialization Course’ launched |29 August 2007

 
Instructor Matiot (photo left) during yesterday’s session with the participants

The course, which is an initiative of the Seychelles Football Federation (SFF), is being conducted by SFF’s director for educational program, Mr Ulric Mathiot, who is also a Confédération Africaine de Football (Caf) instructor.

According to instructor Mathiot, the running of the course is in line with SFF’s policy to attest all personnel involved in the running of football in Seychelles and the prime aim of the course is to specialize all coaches who are working with young players.

Still according to Mathiot, the course is part of the SFF’s vision to pave the way for “our future football generation.”
Being the first African country to come up with such an initiative, Seychelles has been congratulated by Caf which is closely monitoring the outcome of the course which is being used as a pilot project to later be implemented at African level.

“The idea of preparing our next football generation should be considered as a very serious matter and we can use the national team’s performance at the last Indian Ocean Islands Games (IOIG) as an example of why we should start preparing the players early.

We are also trying to use football coaching as a form of education for our youths and with 29 participants following the course, it is a very positive sign,” added Mathiot.

During the first phase which will last for 50 hours, the participants will cover various theoretical topics such as terminology in the science of coaching, methodology and planning in football, group relationship in football settings, motivational problems in youth football settings. In practical, the participants who all hold licence ‘C’, will tackle issues like tactical and physical approach towards young footballers, team building, motor control and energy system.

After completing the first phase of the course, the participants will sit for their course evaluation which will be in the form of a written assessment and will cover 50 percent of the total marks.
The second phase of the course will run from December 10 to 15.