T&T coaches sign partnership with Dutch football
By Nigel Simon (T&T Guardian).
The National Football Coaches of T&T (NFCTT) and the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) have formed a partnership with the hope of bringing benefits to local coaches in the long term.
This was announced by NFCTT interim president and former goalkeeper Jefferson George, at a media briefing held at the St James Youth Facility, Fort George Road, St James on Wednesday.
In announcing the partnership George said, "It has been one of our mandates to provide more coaching opportunities for our members and we have been able to get on board with the KNVB to facilitate those sessions."
An upbeat George, a former W Connection goalkeeper and T&TEC head coach added, "We will be starting as early as April with three workshops/seminars and this is the start of a relationship between the NCTT and the KNVB."
"The KNVB is no stranger to T&T football as they have been on and off with us over the last ten to 15 years and they are an excellent resource for coaching education, trainers, and physiotherapists.
"They have exported a number of successful coaches to top the top leagues and top countries all over the world and we are extremely excited to have them partnering with us in the project.
According to former Fatima College coach Wayne Sheppard, the interim first vice-president of NFCTT the partnership formed with the KNVB is to have coaching education available to them and by extension coaches in T&T.
He said, "This has always been one of our aims and one of a number of things we have targeted to have delivered to coaches in T&T and one of the benefits of joining the NFCTT.
"Some of the benefits that will be on offer to the local coaches include Group Insurance for coaches.
“We found that coaches have been working unprotected out in the field and we want to make sure that coaches have a safety net and a sort of comfort in case of any unforeseen circumstances.
"The coaching education partnership with the KNVB is just one aspect of it as there are other aspects that we are pursuing and at the end of the day what we have identified is that for our football to go forward the coaching education and coaching understanding, the approaches and methodologies have to improve.
So we are taking the lead on having these opportunities for advance education made available to coaches.
Another initiative being offered to the local coaches will be legal advice which Sheppard described as yet another benefit that the NFCTT hopes to offer.
Sheppard explained, “We can’t offer legal representation right now sorry, but legal advice is surely something that we plan to offer
For too long and too often we have heard of stories of coaches signing agreements with clubs, and somewhere along the line the terms of employment changes to the detriment of the coach.
A lot of the coaches don’t know their rights, don’t understand what needs to be done and as a body, we will be there to ensure that coaches can bring their contracts, have it looked at, understand what they are signing and understand what are the circumstances that the contract can be voided or changed."
"Job placement is another aspect because we have in T&T a number of coaches and very few jobs and we are looking to partner with the Ministry of Sports, Sports Company of T&T and those entities to run programs wherein the communities we can get coaches from the communities coaching in the communities.
"So it's not only about a job and job placement but it also speaks to that social partnering that may help to alleviate some of the social issues that we have in areas of T&T.
"A coach as I have always said is also a teacher, and a coach coming from the community can only augur well for the young men and young women in that particular community.
"We also want to have an annual Coaches Convention where we as a coaching fraternity can come and exchange ideas where we have coaches from the top-level, national teams, and Pro League interacting with the coaches who are just starting and operating at the community level.
In that way, we will have an exchange of ideas and easy access to people who have been doing the job for a while, because a lot of coaches when they are starting don’t have that mentor to guide them, but luckily for me, I had Hayden Martin who I was able to learn from.
"By bringing that together it will also allow us the opportunity to attract vendors where coaches can invest in equipment at wholesale prices and give us the opportunity to partner with clubs to create a real coaching fraternity and for us to move forward in a unified direction.
George added, "Already up and running was the NFCTT’s Welfare programme which was started in 20202.
“We all know that 2020 was very challenging and for coaches who make their living through coaching it was no different, but we were able to distribute some hampers through our Welfare Programme of the NFCTT because there are a lot of coaches over the landscape of T&T who would have found themselves on hard times for one reason or another and we were pleased that we were able to be able to distribute some hampers to them, " he ended.
