UEFA coach education: Overview
Sunday, January 2, 2022
Article summary
Coach development is fundamental to keeping European football at the top of the global game.
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Article body
From grassroots to elite football, setting the highest standards for men's and women's coaches is a prerequisite for developing better players and raising the quality of European football ever higher.
Since 1998, the UEFA Coaching Convention has set a common benchmark for how our member associations educate coaches. It has also provided a framework for raising the status of the coaching profession across Europe and facilitating the free movement of qualified professionals within Europe. By signing up, national association diplomas and licences are de facto recognised as UEFA diplomas and licences.
"We set high standards to improve the quality of coach education in all UEFA member associations, with the aim of developing better coaches and, ultimately, better players and the overall quality of the game."
Brief history
Introduced in 1998, our Coaching Convention was updated for the fourth time in 2020.
Mission
"Set high coach education standards to improve the quality of coach education in all UEFA member associations, with the aim of developing better coaches and, ultimately, better players and the overall quality of the game."
Goals
Updated for the fourth time in 2020, the convention sets four key objectives for UEFA's coach education programme that drive technical excellence across the continent:
- Improving the standard of coaching courses;
- Linking education to employment by practising coaching skills in realistic situations;
- Ensuring UEFA offers a clear educational pathway for European football coaches;
- Reiterating the importance of developing a pool of skilled coach educators.
Common coaching courses
UEFA endorses licences at C, B, A and Pro levels, with specialist qualifications also available at Youth B, Elite Youth A, Goalkeeper B, Goalkeeper A and Futsal B levels. Together they provide the basis for educating coaches to a common standard across the European football pyramid structure.
“I fully recommend that all coaches, even former top players, follow the full coach education pathway. It will definitely help them cope with the demands of the game.”
Grassroots coaches
The latest version of the Coaching Convention provides for a new UEFA C diploma for grassroots coaches, which aims to increase the quantity and quality of coaches at grassroots level across all associations.
Representing the first step along our core educational pathway, it teaches children that football is fun and not about results. We are working with associations to introduce the new diploma over a three-year period in parallel to developing long-term strategies for educating grassroots coaches.
Female coaches
We place particular emphasis on increasing the number and quality of female coaches in European football. Our coach development programme for women offers female coaches scholarships of up to €12,000 for UEFA coaching diploma courses, as well as training for female coach educators and technical support for women’s coaching courses and workshops.
We also provide mentoring for female coaches. This sees up-and-coming female coaches paired with experienced mentors. The mentor/mentee pairings for the 2021–23 cycle included former Finnish women’s national team head coach Anna Signeul with Latvia women’s Under-17 head coach Liene Vaciete, and Corinne Diacre – the head coach of France’s women’s team – with Maryna Lis, who takes charge of the Belarus women’s Under-17 side.
Coach educators
Alongside the women's development programme, associations that have signed up to our Coaching Convention can apply for up to €100,000 in annual funding for coach education through our HatTrick development programme, which reinvests men's EURO revenue into football development projects. This support can kick-start a virtuous cycle, helping coach educators to raise standards in the men’s and women’s games in their own countries.