Very soon in T&T local football coaches will need to have the necessary qualification to hold coaching positions of any kind at the domestic club level.
This was revealed by the local federation technical adviser Keith Look Loy at the opening of the Dutch KNVB Coach Instructors Course hosted by the T&TFF for the Caribbean at the Dr Joao Havelange Centre of Excellence, Macoya yesterday.
According to Look Loy, the technical committee of the T&TFF, at a meeting today will finalise a series of proposals for improving the level of club football.
“There are serious weaknesses in our club football and in 2011 the T&TFF is going to begin the restructuring of local club football. “We will establish technical criteria for participation in club football at any level,” Look Loy said.
“And among these criteria will be the establishment of coaching certification requirements. Very soon under the umbrella of the T&TFF you will not be able to coach unless you have been certified to an appropriate level.
Therefore the T&TFF has the responsibility to make coaching education opportunities available to the people so that they can certify themselves. There will be other criteria coming such as legal and financial, infrastructure and other technical criteria,” Look Loy added.
Some six local coaches from T&T were selected to be part of the instructors’ course and there has been an overwhelming response from other local coaches for the opportunity to be part of the subsequent coaching course that will be conducted by the T&T instructors. There have been 100 plus applicants for the next course later this month.
The lead senior instructor and director from the Dutch KNVB and Dutch Academy conducting the current course which is part of the KNVB Nike World Coaches Program, is former Ajax Amsterdam player Kees Zwamborn.
As a coach, Zwamborn has worked with coaches, who worked for clubs such as Feyenoord Rotterdam, FC Den Bosch, NAC Breda and Willem II Tilburg, all of the Dutch League as well as Barclays’ Premiership Sunderland FC.
Etienne Silee and Arno Pijpers are the other instructors who will also assist oversee the T&TFF KNVB ‘C’ License course for local coaches from January 11-15. This is the first step in the T&TFF’s aim to standardise its Coach Education Programme to parallel the standards of European Football Union (UEFA) Courses.