Football: Interview with Caf director of football development, Abdel Moneim Hussein-“There is a need for qualified and knowledgeable coaches to work with the youths” |24 November 2007
Speaking to Sports Nation, Abdel Moneim Hussein, (Caf director of the football development
Said Mr Abdel Moneim:
“We need to have qualified and knowledgeable coaches to work with the youths. This is why Caf decided to organize the course here. In Seychelles you have one of the elite referees in Africa in Eddie Maillet, one of the best instructors in Ulric Mathiot and you also have Suketu Patel who is the Council of Southern Africa Football Associations (Cosafa president), an executive member of Caf and chairman of Caf’s finance committee. You have a lot of qualified people here.
“On top of that, you have an academy. Other than the cost of the flights to reach here, it costs half the price than anywhere in Africa to run the same course here. The infrastructure is very amazing and you can’t find one like this anywhere in Africa. There are lots of academies in Africa, but you won’t find everything you want within the same area. Here you have three astro-turf pitches, the main stadium, a restaurant, the dormitories. You have everything plus the staff of the Seychelles Football Federation. It’s like in Europe and it reminds me of Coverciano, the technical centre and headquarters of the Italian Football Association. This centre produced some of the best coaches like Marcello Lippi and some of the top Italian players. I believe that Seychelles has established itself as one of the main venues to host courses for countries of the Cosafa region. South Africa has better infrastructures than what you have here but it is going to cost four or five times more to organise a course there.”
Asked how can Seychelles’ football progress now that we have all these facilities, Mr Abdel Moneim replied:
“You need some players to go abroad for your football to progress. I’ve talked to Mr Patel and he has told me he is doing his best to get into contact with some foreign teams with whom Seychellois players can go on trials. Right now, Fifa agents are not putting their eyes in places with some populations like here. But if you have good grassroots and the whole football structure is well developed, I think you’ll have professional players. The only thing missing is to have two good eyes to come and pick some good players here. Here the infrastructure is much better than in Brazil, the main producer of players in the world. Now that you have the infrastructure, you need the players. You need to impose football in schools and then clubs will pick out the best. All first division teams must have a youth team or a grassroots academy. Then the SFF and the government will help the teams.”
It is to note that the course was run by Caf instructors Ulric Mathiot (Seychelles) and Govinden Thondoo (Mauritius).
G. G.