The historic course finished yesterday after 16 days of intensive theoretical and practical sessions at the OFC Academy in Auckland, New Zealand, and was run by OFC head of coach education Didier Chambaron with UEFA technical instructor Steve Rutter, who is also coach education manager for the English Football Association.
It is the latest step in the confederation’s coaching accreditation scheme and was attended by representatives from nine of the 11 OFC member associations, all of whom were grateful to receive such a chance to further develop their coaching careers.
“Not even gold and silver can pay for this, the experience is immeasurable,” says participant Usenio Logaivau, coach of the Fiji women’s national team.
“This will definitely impact on the needs of OFC’s member associations and we will do our utmost to raise and develop football using what we have learned during the past 16 days.”
OFC technical director Patrick Jacquemet says the participants all displayed impressive attitudes and commitment throughout the course and that a lot of credit must also go to Chambaron and Rutter for their efforts.
“To have a successful course, you need good instructors and a lot of organisation. We are very grateful for the support of UEFA in this regard,” he says.
As many of the participants have either played or coached at an international level, Rutter says he knew they would all have an understanding of the game and would not be short of enthusiasm.
“I’ve only had to change the mechanism for the delivery because of the geography – the content, the technical syllabus and the course tasks are exactly the same as what we use in England. Didier has used this as a template to work with the first group and he will modify it for the future, including any adaptions necessary to make it more appropriate for the local coaches.”
Rutter says the expectations placed on these first candidates are huge.
“The days have been long but not one of them has sold themselves short. They’ve all been fantastic,” he says.
“However, they will only get a small part of their development coming from this course. The rest of it is what they will do when they go back to their countries to work. When they take this information away, sit down and have a chance to think about it, how they put it into practice on a weekly basis with their own team in their own country will be when we see the results.”
In their roles providing support to the candidates, Chambaron and OFC coach mentor Simon Toselli – who oversees coaching development in American Samoa, Cook Islands, Samoa and Tonga – will also play a major part in their continued development.
Based on what he has seen, Rutter believes there is a strong future for football in the Oceania region in terms of coach education.
“In trying to create better national teams you can keep importing foreign coaches, but what you want is well educated local coaches who understand the cultural and social implications of football and the impact it will have. If effort is anything to go by, then the amount the participants have put in over the last 16 days will have given them a really good foothold.”