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Doru: International Conference will help coaches learn more about modern coaching methodologies

AIFF Technical Director Isac Doru. (Photo courtesy: AIFF Media)
AIFF Technical Director Isac Doru. (Photo courtesy: AIFF Media)

From September 28-30, 2020, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) is organizing a three-day ‘International Virtual Conference’ for coaches, consisting of a number of international-level speakers speaking on a number of relevant topics taking Indian football forward together.

Isac Doru, Technical Director, AIFF, explained the idea behind hosting the conference — stating that the conference will help the attendees learn more about “modern coaching methodologies,” and at the same time, kick-off the “professional development process for coaches.”

“As we know, the AIFF has the Coaching Convention with the AFC and in this regard we should start to implement the professional development of every coach who has a valid Coaching License at the National level. We have a very rigorous plan for the implementation of the same for the next couple of years,” Isac averred.

“This International Conference represents the kick-off of this program and will definitely help the coaches to learn and pick up new information about the modern football coaching methodology,” he added.

Talking further about the three-day conference he mentioned that it will help build on the coaching “identity” and offer “incentive” to increase understanding of the modern-day methodologies.

“This event is going to gather people with huge experience and academic background. We can learn a lot from them and then try to apply them in training or game sessions. Knowledge is power and its application will determine the success and efficiency of a coach,” the Technical Director stated.

“All such conferences shall help us to understand the details and build up the coaching identity and philosophy. The knowledge brought in by this conference is going to give us the incentives to learn about the various aspects of the new and modern coaching methodologies.”

Savio Medeira, Head of Coach Education, AIFF, termed such the opportunity of gathering such top-quality speakers as “very rare” and shared some insights on few of the panelists.

“It is very rare to have such high-quality speakers together for one event. They are all very good and I see a lot of value addition for our coaches through the knowledge and experience that will be shared,” Medeira, a former India International expressed.

“For example, Ms Dawn Scott, who will be speaking on Women’s Football, is a High-Performance coach who has worked with the US Women’s National Team and players such as Megan Rapinoe, which shows the high calibre on display. Mr Dan Abrahams is also a top-level sports psychologist and his inputs should be really good too,” he explained.

Medeira added that as part of the new revalidation process, there will also be ‘refresher points’ for the attending coaches.

“This conference will give an opportunity for coaches to apply the knowledge gained from this conference in real-life situations. There will also be refresher points for the attendees, which are important to complete the CPD and this is a big start for the revalidation process. It was not happening before but with the revalidation system in place, I want to make them aware of the same. In the future, there will be more such webinars and workshops by the AIFF and other stakeholders as well — in line with our vision and mission,” he detailed.

The registration link for the conference can be found by logging onto – coaching.the-aiff.com. Applications to be taken from September 19-25, 2020.

(AIFF Media)