BY SEGUN OLANREWAJU
Coaches who participated in the just concluded Nigeria National League (NNL) refresher course are still counting their blessings for being part of the course.
They are full of praise for the board of the second-tier league led by George Aluo for its foresight in repositioning the league through training and retraining of coaches.
The NNL in conjunction with the National Institute for Sports (NIS) organised a refresher course for all the 40 club coaches in the league aimed at upgrading them in modern football coaching techniques.
In separate interviews during the seminar coaches of El Kanemi Warriors of Maiduguri, Aliu Zubair, Adamawa United, Usman Adams and Stationery Stores of Lagos, Bob Osim both agreed that they learnt a lot from the course anchored by eminent resource persons including; Technical Director of the NFF, Austin Eguavoen, former Super Eagles players; Peter Rufai and Clement Temile, NIS lecturer, Kuhwa Iorsue Jeremiah and Uefa licensed coach, Portuguese Thiago Conde noting that the impact of what they were taught will be seen when the 2023/2024 league season kicks off on 28 October.
According to them, the George Aluo-led board of NNL deserves commendation for the initiative which is the first in the history of the second-tier league just as they expressed hope that it will be sustained.
” We must commend the NNL board led by George Aluo for coming up with this wonderful idea of preparing coaches adequately before the commencement of the league which is the first of its kind in the history of the NNL.
“For us, this is a new dawn, and it has not happened before in the history of the NNL. It takes the courage of a visionary leader to organise this type of seminar which has enriched the coaches’ knowledge as they prepare for the new season.
” It’s also important to state that we learnt a lot from the resource persons and hopefully we’re going to impact the knowledge to our players which will lead to a better league”, they chorused.
The coaches were of the opinion that with regular seminars, the country’s football would improve greatly even as they charged the other leagues to emulate the NNL and organise refresher courses for their coaches.
