FAM Under 15 workshop underway at Mpira Village

The Football Association of Malawi (FAM) is holding a one week course for under 15 Regional League coaches and youth referees at Mpira Village in Blantyre.

The course got underway on Monday morning, with almost every district being represented at the FA’ offices.

FIFA Instructor Kim Poulsen, FAM President Walter Nyamilandu and Technical Director John Kaputa opened the workshop, with Poulsen highlighting how important it is to develop football from the grassroots.

In his remarks, Nyamilandu said his association thought it wise to train the coaches as well as the young referees as one way of ensuring that football in the country is moving towards the right direction.

“Previously, we used to focus on Super League teams forgetting the grassroots where a player is developed. Two years ago, we launched the Under 15 league and for the first time in years, our junior team reached Cosafa Cup final, an indication that football starts at the junior level.”

“My association thought it wise to have these coaches and referees trained so as to ensure that football is going towards the right direction and we will not stop here until we develop talent for the senior team and these are the coaches that will surely help in achieving that. On these young referees, we have had teams complaining of poor officiating at the highest level so by training them, we are trying to improve our level of officiating and we believe that these are the right people to do that,” he said.

On his part, the association’ Technical Director Kaputa said the process of coming up with the list of coaches and referees who are attending the work shop was done on merit as district sports councils were involved in coming up with the selected list.

The young referees are those that have just finished their secondary education, with the coaches being the ones with CAF C Coaching License.

The workshop will be closed on Friday, 28th October 2016