The six day course is one of the key OFC initiatives to identify Papua New Guinea football talent in both coaching and player ranks.
OFC Technical Director Patrick Jacquemet and Asia Pacific Football Academy Director of Football Giovani Fernandes will deliver the workshop in conjunction with their colleagues at the PNGFA Technical Department and Jacquemet is adamant the six days will be fruitful for football.
“We will travel to review the PNGFA Technical activities and finalise the calendar for 2014 and at the same time we will follow up what we started last year in the National Academy Programme in Lae. We also want to start a Youth Academy programme in Port Moresby.
“We will have a workshop there with the coaches who will be involved to organise the year’s objectives then we will hold a trial to identify which players will be part of this programme,” Jacquemet says.
Jacquemet believes Papua New Guinea is an important player in the future of Oceania football.
“Papua New Guinea is very important for us because it has 7 million people there and with the right programme in player development we can quickly make a big difference.
“We’ll work with the PNGFA Technical staff for one week to identify the best potential talented players and to put them in the right programme,” he says, “Everyone who wants to improve needs to practice three or four times a week that’s why we’ll travel to set up these programmes. I’m sure we’ll see a big difference very quickly.”
Split into two parts, the first begins in Port Moresby on Thursday 13 February, the next in Lae on Sunday 16 February.
Both workshops are split into separate components that include identification of key performance indicators for staff, recognising player talent, assessment of players at trials, facilities and selection processes, reporting systems, parent and player agreements.
Time will also be given to analysing budgets and a mentoring programme.
But the challenge is far from straight forward according to Jacquemet.
“We have some obstacles. Papua New Guinea is a very big country and to identify talent is difficult. You do not have a lot of clubs who will identify and develop youth players.
“But we’ll work with schools and then work hard to get the right people, committed people, into the programme.
“From an OFC perspective we have a clear pathway for the players starting at grass-roots level to youth level. From grass-roots activities we head into Development Centres for 10 and 11-year olds, then Centre of Excellence for 12-15 years old.
“The finally we have the National Academy for 16-17 years olds. We want to create this pathway and give the best players the opportunity to have better training, more training. The next step is to create competitions,” he says.
Jacquemet says Giovani Fernandes’ expertise is a big boost to the programme.
“Giovani is an important person for us because he has big knowledge in terms of youth player development. As Director of Football at the Asian Pacific Football Academy he brings the APFA model and will set it up in the region.
“I think we have a good concept with an experienced person in Giovani to set up and to get quick results in a few years’ time.”
The OFC visits commence on Thursday 13 February in Port Moresby then switches focus to Lae on Sunday 16 February 2014.
The final day of the visitation is Tuesday 18 February.
Ends

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