Football Coaching Clinic: Star partners NPFL to train league coaches in Abuja

By Taofeek Babalola

Over 30 participants drawn from the local league in Nigeria are currently attending coaching clinic at the Abuja National Stadium,Sportinglens.blogspot.com reports. 

The coaching clinic which commenced on Tuesday 25th July and end on Thursday 27th July 2017 was facilitated by premium beer brand, Star Lager as part of its continued efforts to support local football in Nigeria, since signing a landmark partnership in 2016 with the League Management Company (LMC).

The coaching clinic is yet another major gain for Nigerian football occasioned by Star lager beer’s partnership with Arsenal FC as the club’s official beer partner in Nigeria.

The clinic will equip local football technical supervisors and coaches with the tactical knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the game and improve the overall quality of Nigeria’s local football league.

The coaching clinic will also feature both theoretical and practical sessions facilitated by members of Arsenal’s technical coaching crew, Simon McManus and James Colinese.

Simon McManus, UEFA Licensed Coach, is in charge of the technical delivery and implementation of ‘Play the Arsenal Way’ across Arsenal FC’s Soccer School locations (22 countries across 5 continents). He delivers bespoke Arsenal-themed coaching programmes strongly hinged on his philosophy of producing an autonomous supportive environment that helps players adopt a growth mind-set approach, high energy-intense sessions, and ecological approach to skill acquisition and individualization of sessions to maximize the benefits to all participants.

James Colinese is a FA Level 1 and Level 3 Talent Identification coach. He has worked in the UK and U.S in many coaching capacities. He was also a head coach of the University of Portsmouth FC and ran their entire footballing programme, consisting of 6 travel teams and 4 development squads. He is currently the head coach at Portsmouth College Football Academy, which competes in the ECFA1 league, the highest ranked college league in the country, while also doubling as an academy scout.

Commenting on the coaching clinic, Portfolio Manager National Premium Lager Brands, Nigerian Breweries, Tokunbo Adodo, said: “We are very proud to have partnered with Arsenal FC and the NPFL on this coaching clinic. The coaching clinic is purely a technical football session to facilitate knowledge transfer between our foreign football club partners and our own football league to develop the quality of the local league. We are confident that this will significantly improve the technical expertise of our local coaches.”

President of the League Management Company, Mallam Shehu Dikko, said: “The coaching clinic in partnership with Star Lager beer and Arsenal FC is a very good thing for Nigeria’s football. The LMC as a body is very committed to improving the Nigerian football league and as such will go the extra mile to ensure capacity-building events like this hold regularly.”