MASERU — The Lesotho Football Association (Lefa) says it will next season bar coaches without basic coaching licences from being in charge of premier league clubs.
Lefa technical director Seephephe ‘Mochine’ Matete told the Lesotho Times that the move is aimed at ensuring that all premier league teams have qualified coaches by 2012/13.
Out of the 14 premier league clubs at least four clubs currently do not have qualified coaches.
If implemented the decision to bar unqualified coaches in the local league could revolutionise local football and improve the standard of the game.
“From the 2012/13 season, there will be no person allowed to coach any premier league team without a Caf C Licence or qualifications that are above,” Matete said.
The C Licence is the basic coaching qualification provided by African football governing body, the Confederation of African Football (CAF).
Matete said they were planning to enrol at least 80 coaches for the basic coaching course before the start of the 2012/13 season to improve the standard of football in Lesotho.
This scenario will likely provide local premier league teams with a wide pool of coaches to select from.
Matete said the first batch of 40 coaches will start their training in October.
“The last group of 40 will be trained in February next year and we are certain that with 80 coaches trained, premier league teams will be coached by only qualified coaches,” he said.
The training for the new coaches will be bankrolled by Caf.
Matete added that the trained coaches would be able get coaching jobs anywhere in Africa because “this coaching course is uniform in Africa, what we do here in Lesotho is done in Morocco, Zambia, South Africa etc”.
The technical director said prospective candidates for the course must be former Lesotho national football team players or at least have a local Level One coaching certificate.
Individuals who attended the ‘Win in Africa with Africa’ programme, a Fifa 2010 World Cup initiative to help improve the standard of football in Africa, will also be accepted for the training programme.
Matete said the training would serve as a platform to evaluate coaches and to inject more professionalism into the art of coaching.
“At the end of the 14-day training, all the coaches will be expected to write an examination facilitated by a Caf instructor to determine if they are eligible to get the C Coaching Licence,” he said.
“If they fail the test, they will not get the licence.”
