11 Oct 2017|Noida | F2 Auditorium
“Sports Authority of India - All India Football Federation International Football Coaching Conference (IFCC-2017) at Amity
AmitySchool of Physical Education and Sports Sciences (ASPESS) in association withAll India Football Federation (AIFF) and Sports Authority of India (SAI)started two day “Sports Authority of India - All India Football FederationInternational Football Coaching Conference (IFCC-2017) at Amity UniversityUttar Pradesh, Sector 125, Noida Campus
Thistwo day conference is aimed to promote and support Youth Development and TalentHubs through Coach Education and Scientific Support for the Football Players
Theobjectives of the conference is to promote Football Coaches through ScientificCoach Education, to exchange scientific knowledge in the field of coaching andallied areas, to enhance the flow of knowledge between the Scientists and thecoach fraternity, to bridge the gap between academia and coaching throughscientific publication, to disseminate knowledge about the standards, initiativesand successful Football related experiments done by various professionals andto explore opportunities to collaborate and promote knowledge and technicaladvancements in the sport of Football.
Addressingthe gathering, Mr. Scott Donell, Technical Director, AIFF, Capital Football& AFC Instructor highlighted that the reason for Indian Football Teamnot to find a place at the World level due to lack of competition at grassrootlevel. He emphasized that even football coaching education suffers as notenough number of matches are being played at National and State level. Heaverred that participation of Indian team in U-17 World Cup has beenencouraging but now there is a need to focus on the next level of promoting thesports amongst the youth.
Speakingon the occasion, Mr. Renedy Singh, Former Indian National Football Playersaid that Indian Football Team still lags behind in comparison to InternationalFootball standards but the efforts to improvise are going in the rightdirection. “By providing better facilities and more competitive environment,then in few years itself, Indian team will play at International leagues.” headded. Mr. Singh stressed that there is no dearth of talent in India but forbetter development of players, right coaching education is required.
Mr.Karim Bencherifa, Head Coach, Morocco National Teamsaid that the present infrastructure and facilities provided to footballplayers in India cannot be taken as an excuse for not producing good players sincemajority of the best football players in the World have been coached withmoderate resources. He remarked that for the player development, one needs tocontinue with the tried & tested learnings of the previous coaches ratherthan commencing with new strategies altogether. Mr. Bencherifa apprised thatfor Indian Football Team to qualify for the World Cup, first and foremost,there is a need to improve their strategy to be best amongst Asian teams.
Sharinghis views on U-17 team’s performance, Mr. Richard Hood, Head of YouthDevelopment, All India Football Federation (AIFF) said that U-17has beenput together as part of the preparation for upcoming World Cup and wasstrategically designed as a very specific programme. He lauded the players whohave been performing well against International competitors. He apprised thatin the future, baton for preparation has to be passed on to the sports clubsand schools which are expected to identify and nurture the young talent at theearly age. Mr. Hood briefed about the concept of ‘Baby League’ that is nowconsidered as solution to promote Football in India. He mentioned that BabyLeague is a concept that started in South America and is a self sustainingmodel wherein the players nurture each other. “If we want to make a world classteam then we need to bring the players in habit of playing football, atleast 40weeks a year from the age of 5yrs itself.” he averred. Mr Hood opined that incomparison to other countries, India is five to six years behind in terms of developmentexperience of young players and to promote football amongst youngsters, it isimportant to educate parents about the sport as the initial inclination towardsthe game can be from home.
Prof.Jatin Soni, Vice Chancellor, Swarnim Gujrat Sports University, Gandhinagar;Prof. Dr. Balvinder Shukla, Vice-Chancellor AUUP & Co-Patron SAI-IFCC andProf. Dr. Kalpana Sharma, Director ASPESS & Sports, Co-ChairpersonOrganising Committee SAI-IFCC, Amity University were also present during theinaugural ceremony.
Duringthe conference, numerous key speakers from Global and Indian Football communityincluding Mr. Steven Martin, Technical Division Support, Football Associations,Belgium, FIFA Representative; Mr. Yamauchi Takafumi, Coach Education Director,Japan Football Association and Ludovi Debeu, National Technical Direction, Headof Institutional Affairs, French Football Federation amongst others deliberatedupon various topics such as “India at the Moment vis-à-vis the world” and“Leadership style to meet the challenges of Indian football”.
ShriSagar Preet Hooda, IPS, Director (Sports), Ministry of Youth Affairs &Sports and Prof Grace Helina, Vice Chancellor, Tamil Nadu Sports & PhysicalEducation University, Chennai will be present during the Valedictory Functionto be held on Thursday, 12 October, 2017 from 1pm onwards at Amity UniversityNoida.