BFF focusing on coaches' education

Even though educated coaches are one of the driving forces behind development of any sporting discipline, coaches' education in our country's football has cruelly been ignored over the years, resulting in poor technique of footballers.

Bangladesh, despite having a rich history of football, have surprisingly produced only 156 educated coaches who have either of the UEFA A -1, AFC A -17, AFC B-53 and AFC C-85 certificates. This low number of coaches could be a reason behind the country lagging behind in South Asia as teams like Maldives, Nepal and Bhutan are improving all the time, thanks to home-grown coaches.

It is often said that footballers coming into the national team are not sound in technique or skill as they learn wrong methods at a tender age due to a lack of educated coaches at the grassroots level.

Following the consistent failure of the national team at an international level, it seems that the Bangladesh Football Federation (BFF) have finally realised the importance of coaches' education to groom players from the grassroots level. With that aim, the local game's governing body is all set to conduct seven coaches' courses and one coaches' instructor course in a year, compared to only eight coaches' courses [four AFC C license, two AFC B license and one AFC A and goalkeeping license] over the last eight years.

The BFF will hold four coaches' courses on AFC C, one each on AFC A and B, one goalkeeping coaches' course and one coaches' instructor course. The second course on AFC C is already running at the BFF headquarters with the participation of 24 individuals after the first one was completed last month.

“Coaches' education is the beginning for anyone who wants to be a football coach. It generally indicates the path of how to be a coach and shows the roadmap but eventually everything depends on the individual,” said former national coach Saiful Bari Titu, appreciating the BFF initiative.

The AFC A licensed coach, Titu, believes that more individuals are coming to the coaching courses this time because coaches at the professional league are being paid well.

“If the individuals choose coaching profession to earn money, then it will be hard for them to succeed. The individuals must have passion for football and need to study round the year with a motto of improving themselves.”

Titu, an instructor of the AFC C license course, believes that the increasing number of educated coaches would help the country's football in future, but the federation should also design courses for the grassroots coaches who will groom up players.

“We need to groom coaches who can give time at the grassroots. There are different coaches' course and BFF should focus on it,” said Titu adding that courses should be taken to the divisional level instead of having it confined to Dhaka.