THE Premier Skills global coach and referee development programme run by the Premier League and the British Council has been launched in Pretoria.
The initiative will take place from 12-18 November, with intensive training for 60 grassroots football coaches and 24 referees.
The programme sees coaches provide face to face training and education materials to participants who will then be able to use and share their newly acquired skills to develop and co-ordinate projects in their own schools and communities.
Through Premier Skills, young people are given opportunities to become better integrated into their local communities, to develop their skills for employability and to raise their self-esteem.
This Phase One course, hosted at the High-Performance Centre at the University of Pretoria in Gauteng, will be the last course in the first stage of this programme. It will be led by Premier League Coach Educator Graham Robinson who will be supported by Alex Curran and Steven Bell, community coaches from Middlesbrough FC and Newcastle United FC respectively.
The course in Tshwane is being jointly organised by the British Council, Premier League and SAFA.
Throughout the week the grassroots trainees will receive expert training from qualified Premier Skills coaches and referees, giving them the skills and support to develop their own community football projects and their development as referees.
Local Premier Skills Coach Educators who completed the Premier Skills programme in 2013 will support the UK coaches on this course.
One of those coach educators, Liezl Windvogel has now changed career and works to train new coaches in communities across South Africa. She said: “I find it extremely satisfying to be able to give back to the community I work with in Johannesburg”.
Coaches and referees from the following NGOs will participate in the Tshwane leg of the programme:
• Footballers 4 Life-Johannesburg
• Dlala Ntombazane-Pretoria
• Inner-city Ambassadors-Hillbrow
• Grassroots Soccer-Alexandra Township
• Scout South Africa-Mpumalanga
• Leseding Community Project- North West
• Free State Sports 4 Change-Bloemfontein
Since Premier Skills began in 2007, 17,715 coaches and referees have been trained in 29* countries, who in turn have reached 1.5 million young people.
CEO of the SAFA Development Agency, Dr Robin Petersen said:
“We are delighted that our longstanding relationship with the Premier Skills programme will continue with this latest round of coach development in Tshwane. Developing competent coaches at all levels remains a cornerstone of our Vision 2022 development plan, and these coaching workshops with the Premier Skills play a unique role in this development.”
