Meridian Project flourishing
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Article summary
Co-operation between Europe and Africa has shifted its focus on to the training and development of youngsters.
Article body
The knowledge
The strategy that UEFA and the African Football Confederation (CAF) have decided to adopt is not to send European coaches to Africa to work with young Africans, but to make extensive efforts to ensure that African football has instructors capable of passing on knowledge to the CAF member associations which form the roots of African football.
UEFA courses
As the first stage of this process, CAF selected a number of refereeing and coaching experts who travelled to Europe to attend UEFA courses aimed at specialists from the European national associations.
African delegation
In the refereeing sector, for example, an African delegation participated in each of the following courses in the 2005/06 period: women referees' course in Nyon, referee instructor courses in Paris and Amsterdam, futsal referees' course in Nyon, annual élite referees' course in Barcelona, referee instructor courses in Vienna and St Petersburg. A total of 14 African representatives attended these courses.
Coaches attend
Over the same period, African coaches (six per event) were invited to take part in the symposium for coaching directors in Dublin, the women's football conference in Oslo, the youth football conference in Limassol, the futsal conference in Madrid, the grassroots football course in Nyon and the course for coach educators in Coverciano.
UEFA/CAF programme
In an intermediate phase designed to prepare the ground for the second stage, African technicians and referees were invited to a meeting in Tunis from 28 July to 1 August, where they were informed about the programme drawn up by UEFA and CAF and reminded about the importance of their task.
Theoretical and practical work
The second stage therefore consists of the implementation of the programme. It is being organised in the form of three-day regional courses for representatives of neighbouring national associations. The instructors who attended the courses in Europe are responsible for teaching candidates selected by their national associations, under the supervision of CAF and UEFA, on subjects specific to African football. The courses involve theoretical and practical work as well as group discussions. The first course was held in Congo at the end of October; another took place in Tanzania in December and three more are planned for 2007. The subjects covered are the same for each course and every one of the 53 CAF member associations will be represented at a course.
Continuous chain
As links in a continuous chain of learning and teaching, the participants in these courses will then be expected to pass on their knowledge within their respective national associations. This will form the third, final and most important phase of the programme, since it will demonstrate how successful the new focus of the Meridian programme has been and how it is contributing to the development of youth coaching. An evaluation of the results will then give some clues as to how the programme should continue in the future.
This article appears in the January 2007 edition of the official UEFA publication uefadirect.
