Bitrus
Bewarang is the Technical Director of the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF. The
former president of the Nigerian Football Coaches Association, NFCA spoke with Hotline
News’ Editor, CHRIS ONOKPEGU on training and re-training of coaches and what
the NFF is doing to develop the grassroot. Excerpts:
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| Bitrus Bewarang |
We
want to know what the NFF is doing concerning the issue of goalkeeping training
at the grassroot level because most clubsides including academies don’t have
goalkeeper’s trainer except at the national level.
Well, thank you very much, we have
identify such shortcomings, for your information, the NFF have sent a
goalkeeper trainer/coach for CAF training course in Cameroun, he should be back
any moment from now to serve that purpose. He will call for the training of
coaches in that area so that we will have multiplying effects on our training
so that the gap created will be taken care of, we are very cautious of that.
We
discovered that some of the coaches that partook in the CAF courses are not
making use of them while some are retiring. What are you doing concerning this
new development?
That too is being noted, when such directive
was given that coaches should have CAF licenses, we discovered that a lot of coaches
have not gone near it. For example, the lowest grade for now is CAF C license,
we have over 500 coaches that have not undergone the training, that is why we
are conducting one in about a week’s time. So we are very cautious of that and
you know there are criteria to get registered and get trained for the license.
We
also discovered that some coaches have attitudinal problems and they displayed
them while matches are on, are you also taking that into consideration?
Well, we try to bring it to the
notice of coaches when they come for training. In fact this is the main reason
why you are expected to be attending refresher courses so that you know such kinds
of character should be avoided. It is not like we are not concern about the
ethics of the profession, we make sure that coaches abide by the ethics of the
profession that is why we frown at news that coaches get money from players
before they are fielded and that is a typical case of ethics. We will try to
monitor this through the coaches association and we will try to carry it on and
ensure coaches undertake refresher courses and that will surely improve the standard
of play; and so that we can actually see them in our games. You know
personally, I love to enjoy seeing good football, so we are trying to set that
standard that coaches should be well trained and actually apply the various
techniques they get from their various trainings into their matches so that the
game will be beautiful and will attract fans to the stadium. So I am happy that
the NFF is doing everything possible to ensure that fans are attracted to the
stadium and you know when fans are attracted to the stadium, sponsors will also
be attracted.
What
are you doing concerning coaches that are not certified and are teaching kids
at the grassroot?
That is something that is dear to the
heart of NFF. You know I addressed this issue when I was told to speak at the
Nigeria National League, NNL general assembly and I said we will not condone the
so called, ‘coachie’ because some people will just feel they can gather young
stars and start impacting the knowledge of the game on them and most times they
are giving wrong instructions. The NFF is pushing hard to develop football at
the grassroot and that is first, the coaches have to be trained; what used to
be in the past is that when they say football development, what happened is
that we just go and organize competitions and that is not the reason behind
football development. First of all you develop coaches, train them and make
them available to the grassroots so that they will teach these players before
you organize competitions, so these are gradually being brought to the
attention of the Federation and I am very happy that you know we are trying to come
up with this and that is why they have given the technical department as many coaches’
training as possible.
Even
the last La Liga coaching course that was held, so many coaches that are
certified partook while those that were not dominated the course, why did the
NFF allow that if you are trying to encourage coaches to be certified?
Well, you see sometimes some of this
information don’t get to these people (certified coaches) and those that are close
to some people in the League Management Company, LMC or the NFF get these
information and they are opportuned to attend but we have observed that
shortcomings and whenever that kind of opportunities come, we are going to
ensure that proper dissemination of information are given so that we have the right
people to attend.
Lastly,
we have discovered that many of the trained coaches are jobless while those
that are not certified are the ones seating on the benches for clubs in the
country, is there anything the NFF is doing about it or do you any other ways to
engage them?
Honestly, we have been saying some of
these things during the courses; you find out that the political system is actually
not helping issues. When you try to get these knowledgeable coaches to be used,
you find out that in the various states, politics take precedent, somebody will
say let my brother be there and I think it is not helping us very much but you
know the league too has a great part to play. It is left for the league to now
make it as a rule that it is so so kind of level of coaches that they want to
be on the bench. By then, proper things will be done, I think the LMC did that at
the beginning of this season and some of the clubs complied, only that we have few
coaches with grade on ground so it couldn’t go round. We surely going to
intensify our training programme so that we can get a number of them but I am
telling you some of these things are not our faults, somehow it is the
political system that is responsible. When the league comes up with the rules then
it will help us to knock off these untrained coaches.
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