OFC President David Chung says the licensing programme is an essential part of the continued development of football in the Pacific and is pleased to see the foundations laid by former technical director Jim Selby being built upon.
“On behalf of OFC, I am delighted to endorse this progressive education scheme,” President Chung says.
“I trust it will be a valuable asset in attracting and retaining quality coaches who can help shape the future of football in Oceania. Most importantly, this process will ensure our youth are given the best possible opportunities to develop and fall in love with the game.”
The scheme has been developed by the OFC Technical Department and is based on those used by confederations in other parts of the world but with a unique Oceania flavour.
It has already been put into practice in several of OFC’s 11 member associations and will be implemented in other countries throughout the rest of 2011 by OFC Technical Director Patrick Jacquemet and Technical Coordinator Didier Chambaron.
Chambaron was responsible for holding the inaugural ‘D’ Licence course, the first step on the accreditation pathway, in Vanuatu recently and believes the scheme will be of great benefit to the development of coaches in the Pacific.
“The players in the region have a lot of potential but we need to improve the level of the coaches,” Chambaron says. “If we can do that then the players will improve very quickly.”
Based on extensive research, the new scheme outlines the necessary requirements for coaches to progress from a ‘D’ Licence to an ‘A’ Licence and covers all levels of the game including grassroots, youth and senior football as well as futsal and beach soccer.
While the programme is closely related to those run in fellow confederations, Jacquemet says the need to tailor it specifically to Oceania was great.
“It’s based on other courses in some regards but we wanted to create our own pathway that is unique to the Pacific. The demands of the countries in this part of the world are different and we have to take that into account,” says the former goalkeeper, who played over 300 games for Valence in France before moving to Tahiti to play for Venus in 1992.
“We don’t want to copy Europe or Asia, we need our own pathway, the Oceania way. To follow through on OFC’s aim of capacity building amongst our member associations, we can’t copy anyone else because the game is so different in Oceania.”
The technical department will now have a busy schedule to implement the education scheme and run courses across the 11 member associations.
For more information about the programme click here