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Petros Kausiyo, Deputy Sports Editor
LOCAL coaches, eager to meet the Zifa deadline to attain the mandatory Caf A Licence, have made a passionate appeal to the soccer mother body to review the fees they are charging for the course and ensure “they are more affordable’’.
The next Caf A Licence course is scheduled for Harare from January 9-23 for the first module with the second slated for February 13-27 and participants would have to fork out $1 200 each.
Zifa on their part have made it mandatory that any coach seeking to sit on the technical bench of a Premiership club should have the A Licence.
This means coaches seeking to attain the Caf A Licence in time for the start of the 2017 Castle Lager Premiership would have to part with the $1 200 each in order to secure places for the two-part course, which would be conducted by an instructor seconded by the Confederation of African Football.
However, the Zimbabwe Coaches Union have pleaded with Zifa to review downwards the charges for the course arguing that the majority of their members would not be in a position to enroll because of the prohibitive costs.
Newsome Mutema, Zimbabwe Coaches Union secretary-general said yesterday they had engaged Zifa through the association’s technical director Taurai Mangwiro seeking a review.
Mutema suggested that Zifa could come up with a concise budget that could cater for the majority of applicants who need to attain the licence.
“Zifa should ensure that course fees are affordable when they are running their coaching programmes, this is so that many are not disadvantaged given the prevailing economic situation in the land.
“We feel the course fees should be determined by proper costing system which is designed on a cost recovery basis since Caf caters for most of the expenses of the foreign instructors,’’ Mutema said.
Mutema said the fact that the course would be held at the Zifa Village should help in reducing the costs.
“Caf programmes are being hosted at the Zifa Village and there is no reason why they should be that expensive. It must be noted that participants are not provided with any course materials and spend a lot of money again during programmes paying for those materials.
“If the forthcoming program attracts 40 participants given that most coaches need to respond to the new standards being implemented for 2016, a gross figure of $48 000 is realised,’’ Mutema said.
Mutema, however, saluted Zifa for building the capacities of local coaches over the years and noted that Zimbabwe’s participation at the African Cup of Nations will for the third time be led a homegrown gaffer.
Sunday Chidzambwa was the first coach to take the Warriors to the Nations Cup tournament in Tunisia in 2004 before Charles Mhlauri guided them to the tournament in Egypt two years later.
Callisto Pasuwa will become the third local coach to take charge of the Warriors at the Nations Cup when he presides over their campaign at the 2017 competition in Gabon.
“We really appreciate the efforts being put by Zifa to develop the coaches and this has yielded results given that all our Afcon qualifications were spearheaded by local coaches.
“Our appeal to the Zifa president (Philip Chiyangwa) is to have the fees reduced by coming up with a more cost effective budget,’’ Mutema said.
Mutema also revealed that the majority of local coaches were either underpaid or unemployed, making it difficult for them to afford to undertake courses that cost $1 200.
The Coaches’ Union secretary-general also said the coaches in the Premiership parted with $200 each every year in order to be licensed for the season.
“We are happy with the standards that Zifa are looking to set and we have urged our members to comply.
“But we are saying $1 200 is too much and the Zifa directive has come at short notice too and at this rate it may be a pipe dream for one to attend the Caf A licence.
“Coaches are licensed every year and we believe that part of that licence fees should be ploughed back for their development or even for a refresher course that is not necessarily the Caf A or Caf B licence.
“Zifa are not producing any modules for our coaches and thus we cannot understand how each coach can be asked to fork out more than $1 000.
We believe that the TD should sit down with the finance committee and work out a budget of what is needed for Caf courses and what can be affordable to our members.
“If Zifa and PSL can also help us through their traditional sponsors and partners and subsidise our coaches.
“We are not saying that we want free education for local coaches but we are saying help these coaches who are also key in identifying talent and nurturing it for the benefit of the country’’.
Mutema said 114 of their members currently hold Caf B licences and would want to upgrade to Caf A in order to seek jobs at top-flight clubs ahead of the 2017 season.
“Now that we have this new requirement we are looking an average of about 48 coaches who need to attain the Caf A licence in order to service the 16 PSL clubs that we have in the country.
“Fifa values development and want it to be accessible to members associations and that is why they send grants towards that so we also expect our mother body to make similar initiatives and we believe that a solution can be found to the challenges that our members are facing,’’ Mutema said.
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