The Sunday News
Ngqwele Dube, Sports Correspondent
ZIFA is set to maintain waivers for championship winning coaches and coaches who failed a few subjects in the Caf A course held last year.
The football national association is set to maintain the standardisation introduced last year. Acting president and technical development committee chairman, Omega Sibanda said due to the suspension of coaching courses by continental body, Confederation of African Football (Caf) they had to extend the waivers.
Last year Zifa adopted a strict standardisation of local football coaching allowing only Caf A holders to take charge of Premier Soccer League clubs but exempted championship winning coaches. Zifa also allowed those who had failed to attain the Caf A badge after failing a few subjects during a course that was held at the beginning of last year. More courses had been lined up but Caf instructed associations to halt on courses as they reviewed the curriculum to align them with European equivalents.
“We continue with the exemptions because of the cancelled courses. Remember the waivers are not permanent hence the coaches are expected to attain the badges in the near future. We had planned a course that would have enabled those who failed a chance to redeem themselves and also for championship winning coaches to attain the requisite qualification. So it was not through their own fault the course was not held,” said Sibanda.
He however, added that all other coaches would be required to posses Caf A to sit in the bench for PSL clubs. Sibanda said there was a misconception that coaches who attained Caf B in 2016 are eligible for a waiver because of the cancellation of the Caf A course but it was not the case. He said after attaining a Caf badge, a coach needs a full season of practice before he is eligible to sit for the next level badge.
Sibanda revealed that Caf has been working on realigning the courses to ensure they are in line with international standards and coaches in their possession can practice anywhere in the world.
“The Caf president (Ahmed Ahmed) has announced, at the ongoing Caf congress in Morocco that they would be introducing a professional diploma in coaching and this is a welcome development. We now await the new curriculum and the go ahead to start the courses. The new badges will be equivalent to their European badges to ensure they can use them to coach anywhere in the world. Local coaches who obtain international badges will now have their certificates converted to Caf equivalents through inquiries to the continental body while clubs hiring foreign coaches will need to submit the qualification to Zifa before applying to immigration for work permits so that we ascertain whether it corresponds with our standards,” he said.
Sibanda urged coaches to be ready to improve their knowledge and attain higher badges as Zifa will schedule an exciting line up of courses to cater for all those who want to take up coaching. He said there are several administration courses that would be in the offing, urging administrators to ensure they attain these courses as standardization also applies to the officials. Sibanda said clubs should apply early for the coaches’ badges from the association to ensure there are no hassles when the season begins.
“Clubs have a tendency of applying late for licences but this negatively affects identification at games so we are urging them to do this early. Our Transfer Matching System expert and technical director are ready to assist them. This also applies to player licences,” he said.
