Western India Football Association(WIFA) to Train 5000 Coaches in Association with AIFF

The Western India Football Association (WIFA), the governing body for the game in Maharashtra is coming up with an ambitious project of producing 5,000 coaches certified by the All India Football Federation over the next three years.

To mark 100 years of its existence, WIFA is embarking upon this journey to bridge the game between available qualified coaches and the ever increasing pool of young football aspirants. At present there are only 55 qualified AFC Coaches in the state which has 30 district under its ambit with more than 2000 clubs, 1500 school teams and around 500 college teams playing the sport.

A brainchild of WIFA CEO Henry Menezes, the grassroots level Coach Education Program will begin in the states of Maharashtra with an objective to see the state as one of the top footballing state of the country and on successful implementation in Maharashtra, the program will be spread out to other states of the country.

“The pilot project will first create a pool of instructors from the available AFC ‘A’ and ‘B’ license holders in the state. Thereafter these instructors would be eligible to train coaches under them,” Menezes said.

“This pilot project will help unearth quality coaches from among former players of repute, who would be then used to train youngsters at the grassroots level,” he added.

He also said that this project would help in creating uniformity in the coaching methods. “This project will also ensure that there will be uniformity in the coaching methods and standards used at the grassroots level with periodic reviews and evaluations of the systems, being used,” said the former India goalkeeper.

The program, which is the first of its kind conducted by any federation, is to ensure that the correct coaching methods and systems are imparted to all aspiring footballers in every district, clubs, schools and colleges across the state.