History: first-ever comprehensive coaching course concludes
FKF Nairobi West has concluded the first comprehensive course of its kind in the country, built on the premise that a football club needs far more than a coach to survive a season.
FKF Nairobi West CommunicationsNairobi West, Nairobi
History. FKF Nairobi West has concluded the first ever comprehensive coaching course, covering introductory coaching, match officiating, data analysis, nutrition and financial management, a historic moment in football capacity building in Kenya.
The closing ceremony was attended by Athanas Obango, Head of National Teams and Projects, Harambee Stars team manager Nick Kimanthi and Branch Chairman Bernard Omondi, among other administrators and stakeholders.
One course, five disciplines
Most grassroots education stops at coaching badges. The thinking behind this course was that the coaching badge is rarely the thing that ends a club's season. Clubs fold because nobody kept the books, because there was no official available, or because players broke down halfway through a fixture list nobody had planned recovery around.
The syllabus
- Introductory coaching: session design and working with beginners
- Match officiating: laws of the game and practical match control
- Data analysis: recording and reading what actually happens in matches
- Nutrition: fuelling and recovering players on realistic local budgets
- Financial management: club books, budgeting and accountability
Taught together, those five disciplines describe an entire functioning club. A participant who leaves able to plan a session, keep a match record, and account for a season's spending is worth more to community football than a specialist in any one of them.
Match officiating is the pressure point
Of the five, officiating is the one the branch feels most acutely on a Saturday morning. A shortage of trained referees is the most common reason a fixture cannot go ahead as scheduled, and an under-supported official is the most common flashpoint on a touchline.
Training more officials from within the branch's own football community, people who already know the grounds, the clubs and the players, is a slower fix than hiring in, but a far more durable one.
“This is the first of several comprehensive courses designed to improve the quality of grassroots football across the branch.”
FKF Nairobi West Branch
A programme, not an event
The branch has since followed this course with a CAF D refresher for thirty licensed coaches, and further cohorts are planned. The intention is a standing education calendar that clubs can plan around, with each intake drawn from across all four sub-counties rather than concentrated where the branch office happens to sit.
Clubs interested in nominating members for future cohorts should speak to their league secretary, who will receive intake dates as they are confirmed.
