The South African Football Association on Thursday launched an academy for coaches in honour of legendary Bafana Bafana mentor Clive Barker.
Barker, who famously led Bafana Bafana to the Africa Cup of Nations title in 1996, and World Cup qualification the following year, died after illness at the age of 78 in June.
The SAFA Clive Barker Academy will be directed to educate coaches across the country, the national football governing body said on Thursday.
“We are pushing two main agendas – being women’s football and youth football. It is critical that in line with these two agendas, our coaches are educated and skilled to be able to meet the international standards of these areas of football, and today’s launch speaks about that,’’ said SAFA vice president Linda Zwane.
SAFA Technical Director Walter Steenbok added that the initiative was to uplift local coaches in order to improve the standard of football in South Africa.
“We will be offering a number of different courses under the Clive Barker Academy and we are open to working with stakeholders and institutions from South Africa and abroad to capitalise on the initiative in order to grow our football,” said Steenbok.
“The Technical side of football is very interesting and modern football allows for specialists in many different aspects of the technical department. In modern football, one can become a Technical Director, a performance analyst, a scout, youth coach/scout and many other areas.
“The SAFA Clive Barker Academy will focus of areas such as these to train our up and coming coaches,” concluded Steenbok.
IOL Sport