DILI (14 March 2014) – Asian Futsal and beach soccer will receive a boost as the AFC are set to be the first confederation to build continental coaching certificates for Futsal fitness, Futsal goalkeeping and beach soccer.
The AFC, through their Futsal and Beach Soccer Development Department, are in the midst of building the contents of future courses which aspirant Futsal fitness, Futsal goalkeeping and beach soccer coaches will take to be certified coaches in the said coaching areas.
The Department recently completed a workshop for each of the three new coaching areas and experts from across the continent were invited to discuss and brainstorm what skills and knowledge would be included into the envisioned courses.
These new courses will be the latest addition to the existing ones for Futsal, the AFC Levels 1, 2 and 3 Futsal Coaching Certificate Courses.
Talib Hilal (Oman), Airton Andrioli (Australia) and Ling Luhui (China) were the experts tasked with discussing the contents of the future beach soccer coaching certificate course.
The panel of experts during the Futsal goalkeeping coaching certificate contents workshop consisted of Amir Farashi (Iran), Chen Yung-Sheng (Chinese Taipei) and Haroon Amur Hamed Al Bartamani (Oman).
Dr. Abdolhoessein Parnow (Iran) and Chan Hiu Ming (Hong Kong) were on the panel of experts to discuss the contents of the future futsal fitness coaching certificate course.
“The objective of these workshops were to improve the level of our futsal to reach the world standard,” said Ali Targholizade, the AFC Futsal and Beach Soccer Development Director.
“Goalkeeping and fitness are very important in futsal. We realise that Asia is behind Europe and South America in this fast game because we are behind in these two areas. Without specialised coaches for these areas, we definitely can’t enhance our game. In 2012, we started the plan to have these expert coaches and now we are past the first stage by having these workshops to discuss these things.
“As for beach soccer, the AFC statutes now include this game so that Asia is in line with the rest of the world. I’m happy to note that currently 21 countries in Asia are involved in it. They would need more knowledgeable and experienced coaches in beach soccer and we are anticipating this future need. This is why we have these panels of experts to discuss ways how to produce properly qualified coaches in these aspects of futsal and also the beach soccer game.”
Targholizade said the recommendations from the panels of experts at the workshops will be tabulated and presented to the relevant committee in the AFC for consideration.
“From the input gathered from the workshops, we will introduce a policy for futsal fitness, futsal goalkeeping and beach soccer coaching education. We will propose how many levels are needed for each of these coaching certificates, how long the courses should be and what the course contents are for these certificates, etc.
“Our plan is to have the complete documents for the policy by this November before we present it to the AFC Futsal and Beach Soccer Committee for discussion. Our target is to start conducting these courses in 2015, at least at the beginning level or Level 1, before the more advanced levels of the certificates.
“And of course we are going to need a new panel of instructors to deliver these courses but this is another matter and we will build this slowly after we have built the courses.
“We feel honoured to be the first confederation to build a coaching curriculum for these three areas. We are taking our development work seriously because behind good performance, there’s good development.”
Currently there are three levels of the coaching certificate and a Pro Diploma, three levels of the goalkeeping coaching certificate and two levels of the fitness coaching certificate, all available for the game of football.
However, the Futsal and beach soccer games are also growing rapidly in the continent which has great potential to develop in order to be a world-class contender, thus the AFC foreseeing the need for experts specialising in these three areas of coaching.
