SAFA Coaching Department once again partners with FIFA to elevate its Coach Educators

23 September 2024 – The South African Football Association (SAFA) Coaching Department has once again partnered with FIFA to elevate its Coach Educators as South Africa continues to make their presence felt as a leading country when it comes to Coach Education.

The third phase of the FIFA/ SAFA Coach Educator’s Development Pathway got underway on Monday, 23 September 2024 in Sandton as 22 Coach Educators from around the country came together to begin their five-day onsite workshop. This follows intense online workshops, which was held in early September 2024.

This workshop runs from 23 – 27 September 2024.

The main purpose of the Coach Educator’s Development Pathway is to develop more coach educators, meet the international standard of coaching while also assisting current educators to upgrade their knowledge and to become accredited to deliver Pro, A and B License courses.

SAFA Technical Director Walter Steenbok said that 2024 had been a very great year for the Association since their re-introduction into the CAF Convention. He added that there was a lot a work to be done to ensure that South Africa delivers on its mandate, but also stay in the convention.

“We welcome this pathway workshop with open arms and would like to thank FIFA for considering us, their member associate to deliver the Coach Educator’s Pathway. This year has been good for the Coaching department as we have delivered many coaching courses. But our reintroduction into the CAF Convention also meant that we have to upgrade and update our Educators, and this is exactly what we are doing with this workshop,” said Steenbok.

“We have many Coach Educators in the country. Some have been more active than others and some are reaching prime age, so it is important to spread the knowledge and give the next generation a chance to elevate themselves. We began this pathway almost a month ago with our online learning.

We began this pathway with an e-learning programme, then followed by an online deliberations for 4 days.

Now we have entered the third stage of the Coach Educators Pathway (onsite) where consolidation and reinforcement of lessons from the two stages are being addressed. From here, both online and on-site mentoring stages will be concluded in the future.”