Vincentian football coaches aiming for higher regional calling

The use of foreign personnel to conduct Grassroots and D licence football courses here in St Vincent and the Grenadines, could soon be a thing of the past.

This, as three local coaches were part of a CONCACAF Train the Trainer programme, which was held at the Parkinson Resource Centre in Barbados.

The three were technical director of St Vincent and the Grenadines’ football Keith Ollivierre, along with national Under-17 women’s coach Andrew Bramble and Theon Gordon.

Speaking to SEARCHLIGHT, Ollivierre outlined the thinking behind the new approach.

“The way that FIFA and CONCACAF are going they are empowering locals to train locals and educating persons who are culturally oriented to educate persons of the same cultures,” Ollivierre noted.

He said that attending the course in Barbados was the beginning of a wider process.

“We have a task now in which we have to do several presentations, several course work and the likes… From that we are to be CONCACAF licensed coaches, where we will be called upon to do D licence courses and grassroots courses,” the SVGFF technical director related.

Reflecting on the outing in Barbados, Ollivierre noted, “It was a refresher and enlightening course and spot on to what is happening in the 21st century …The information given was useful in the day-to-day operation, not for just football, but coaching in general and it brings everything down to earth, making it reality based”.

Ollivierre said that all the facilitators were impressed by the knowledge and work ethics of the Vincentian contingent.

Among the facilitators were Vin Blaine, Lenny Lake, Neil Ellis, Anton Corneal, Joycelyn Germe, Andre Waugh and Etienne Siliee.

The Vincentians were among 28 coaches from Barbados, the Cayman Islands, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, who participated in the programme.

CONCACAF scheduled the course as a means of elevating the quality of football throughout the region.