Football Kenya Federation (FKF) President Nick Mwendwa has revealed Premier League clubs in the country will be required to hire the services of a CAF A licensed coach to be allowed to play in the top-flight.
Speaking after opening a CAF A refresher coaching seminar being attended by 25 coaches at the Kenya Institute of Special Education, Mwendwa affirmed the new rule that will be mandatory for all 18 clubs will start work next year and further promised to have at least 200 coaches training in the level to help accommodate each and every club.
“We have the top, top coaches in the country attending the refresher course, these are the guys who have done everything, and these are the guys we need to make our players be great and we need them all, 25 of them are having their CAF A refresher license and as we go forward, we will require every club to have CAF A license for their head coach,” said Mwendwa.
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“So we are training them now, we will have another class in October, so we are going to have 50 coaches, who have a CAF A license and every club that recruits locally will be required to hire a coach with a CAF A license, this is so important because these are the crop of coaches, who determine our philosophy, who determine how we play, who determine the technical abilities of our professional players, who play for the national team.”
Mwendwa further explained the importance of having coaches get training by saying: “I cannot emphasise how important this is, it is so important, we will have a session with them every time the league closes so that they can contribute to the game because football is about players and the people who make the players are the teachers, and the teachers are these coaches,” adding: “So I am very pleased to do this because it is been 10 years in the making and to have them all and hear their debate and opinions because coaching is about strong opinion, so this are big coaches, strong coaches and we want to make them bigger so that our game can go to next level.”
Mwendwa added: “This is so important in our strategy, we have so far trained 6,000 coaches in Kenya, from CAF D, CAF C, CAF B and now CAF A, we want to make sure that we have 10, 000 coaches in the country and we want to make sure that we have at least 200 coaches at the highest levels that a club can choose from this pool of 200 coaches so they can have the best coaching the best clubs in the country to raise our game.”
Speaking on behalf of the coaches, former Wazito FC, Sofapaka, Tusker, and Harambee Stars coach Francis Kimanzi welcomed the training by saying: “The level of the game is changing a lot and the knowledge is very much needed to improve the level of the game, so for you to improve the players, you also need to improve the knowledge level of the coaches, knowledge is key, and knowledge is power when it comes to the field of football.”
Apart from Kimanzi, other notable coaches attending the course include Tusker coach Robert Matano, Salim Ali, Ken Odhiambo, Zedekiah ‘Zico’ Otieno, Twahir Muhiddin of Bandari, Sofapaka technical director David Ouma, Mike Mururi, Gilbert Selebwa, Ken Kenya of FC Talanta, and former Kenya coach Jacob ‘Ghost’ Mulee.