AIFF to conduct 'International Virtual Conference' for coaches

All India Football Federation (AIFF) is set to organise an 'International Virtual Conference' for coaches from September 28-30, which will feature a number of top-level speakers conducting sessions over a wide variety of topics.

In a live chat with AIFF TV, AIFF head of coach education Savio Medeira shared details about the course and the intentions behind conducting it.

"We have some very good speakers and the conference is based on various aspects, such as youth football, women's football, media, scouting and coach education, where an instructor from the FIFA coach education department will be there. On the last day, we have planned a master class with two of the best coaches -- national team head coach Igor Stimac and Phil Brown. With such a line-up, if everything goes right, this conference will come out very successful," Medeira declared.

Along with the above-mentioned coaches, the three-day conference will feature speakers such as Thomas Dennerby (India U-17 women's national team coach), Basir Mohamed (Senior Manager, Coaching Development Department FIFA), Dan Abrahams (Sports Psychologist), Dawn Scott (High-Performance Coach, FA UK), amongst others.

The participants in the conference will be AIFF C Certificate, AFC B Diploma, AFC A Diploma and AFC Pro Diploma-level coaches. The attending coaches will be accorded credits as part of the new revalidation process introduced by Medeira.

The international conference comes on the heels of various online webinars and workshops organised by the AIFF since the lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

"When Covid-19 did strike us somewhere in March, we had to stop all our activities. But, the good thing what had happened was many of the stakeholders did come and conducted webinars to keep the coaches refreshed and focused on their job," Medeira stated.

"We along with SAI did a big webinar which was very well appreciated by the coaches. Then, there were so many webinars which were done at state-level, along with many other activities," he added.