SOME football coaches in Katsina State have undergone a four-day coaching training fully sponsored by the state government.
The training was in collaboration with London Based Football Company (You Vs You) headed by Ahmed Mohammed, the Chairman of Katsina Football Academy.
At the end of the training on Friday, the coaches asked parents to give their children time for football and other aspects of sports for them to become better players and excel.
The training held at the Muhammadu Dikko Stadium, Katsina, drew participants from across the three senatorial zones of of the state – Funtua, Daura and Katsina.
Twenty five participants in the programme were trained on long-term player development, teaching styles, player involvement, and session design.
Mr Daniel Dutch, a London-based professional coach, who led the coaching program, said he is in Nigeria and Katsina State to help local coaches enhance their capacity with new techniques and to assist them in learning knowledge so as to achieve their goals.
The London-based coach, who works with Premier League side, Tottenham Hotspur and holds an English FA coaching license, hopes that the Katsina Football Academy will soon start producing coaches that will serve international communities.
“It’s been amazing experience working with different coaches. Every single one of the coaches is doing brilliant and concentrating to learn. We thank the Katsina State Government for introducing the program, its effort is crucial and fantastic” Dodge noted.
Three of the coaches interviewed expressed satisfaction and experience they derived from the training which they described as commendable and practically oriented.
For one of the coaches, Muhammad Sharif (Moha), “I could go hours in explaining my experience. I have learnt that, to change the psychological thinking of your players is very important.
“The perception your players should have for football is very important. I have learnt to understand that this football we see is not just an entertainment but also a business. We train them, coach them and market them. And we are going to start marketing our players from the local level”, Moha stated.
And for Nasiru Sa’idu, “The program is more of practically oriented and a lot of experiences are being derived in giving to younger ones. It’s commendable effort by the state government. A lot of techniques have been improved into our coaching techniques.
“We learned that, all coaching have to be focused based on psychological thinking of the players, their physical and their technical abilities considering their age groups. We have really derived a lot of experiences from him”, he added.
For Mas’ud Suleiman, ” We thank the Katsina State Government for the opportunity in this four days coaching clinic program although the training has been stressful”, he explained.
On his part, the Katsina Football Academy Chairman, Ahmed Mohammed thanked the State Governor, Malam Dikko Radda for his readiness to support Youths from the grassroots in achieving their dreams.
It could be recalled that, the state governor Mal Dikko Umar Radda last week officially unveiled the first of its kind, Football Academy owned by the State, with 70 players recruited into the academy between the ages of 14 to 20.