'Incredible' interest shown in AIFF's fourth goalkeeping introductory certificate course
Dec 22, 2020
New Delhi [India], December 22 : A total of 30 coaches participated in the fourth goalkeeping introductory certificate course conducted by the All India Football Federation (AIFF).
Former India footballer Gumpe Rime and Raghuvir Khanolkar were the two instructors during the course which has now been taken by 180 coaches.
According to AIFF Head of Coach Education Savio Medeira, the interest shown by the participants has been 'incredible'.
"The interest they are showing is incredible and it shows a lot of coaches do want to know about this specialised position," said Medeira in an AIFF release.
"We have focused on making the courses interactive for the student coaches -- to discuss their issues and the challenges they are facing. This makes it better for the participants and allows them to know more about the role of a goalkeeper," he added.
Mederia, a former Indian senior national team player, also said the course will help produce better goalkeepers and goalkeeping coaches in the future.
"We did not expect to start this course online initially but we did so because of the pandemic situation. Now, we also have to work on keeping the coaches who have completed the course in the system, which will help produce better goalkeepers and goalkeeping coaches in the future," he said.
One of the two instructors for the course, Rime stated that the participants have been 'very interactive' over the course of these workshops and that there have been many 'positive changes' as a result of this initiative.
"The participants have been very interactive and with every course, we can see a lot of improvement. The way people are responding to this course is very encouraging for us and it has been growing continuously," Rime said.
"We never expected such a response at the start but once we kicked off this course, the way the people have responded is huge," he added.
Rime also said there has been tremendous change when it comes to goalkeeping coaching in India as people are understanding the value of it.
"In goalkeeping coaching, we can see a lot of positive changes and people are understanding the value of goalkeeping coaching. Targeting coaches at the grassroots level is definitely having a very positive impact," he said.
