Zambia: The Zambia Football Coaches Association’s (ZAFCA) first-ever physical fitness workshop kicked off in Lusaka with over 20 candidates participating in the five-day programme.
FAZ president Andrew Kamanga says his executive is embracing modern trends in the development of sport and welcomes the ZAFCA and Major Sports Institute partnership.
Former FAZ president Teddy Mulonga, who is a ZAFCA patron, was also in attendance. ZAFCA president Dan Kabwe says his organization was happy that the training had taken off after protracted engagements with their partners.
Launching the training at Prince Charles in Makeni, Kamanga said FAZ had recently engaged FIFA on the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology project and the Global Positioning System for clubs as part of steps to modernize the game.
“We have invested so much effort in the last few months trying to upskill our coaches both for national teams and others that we believe can add value to the game. We did send coach Masauso Tembo and Ian Bakala to Morocco to pursue their CAF A badges. At the same time, Wedson Nyirenda has just started his CAF Pro License course in Morocco,” Kamanga said.
“We have a long-term plan to not just train more coaches but open a coaching school in Zambia. We have been leveraging on our partnership with the Croatia Football Federation to help us set up the coaching school in Zambia. We know that having the school here will give more coaches an opportunity to upgrade their credentials and will naturally be cheaper too.”
He added: “Given the dynamism of global sports today, there is no way any country can improve its game without adapting to modern trends. We have just recently signed up for a program to provide Global Tracking System equipment for our Super League team through support from FIFA. This, too, is an acknowledgement of the demands of the modern game.”
Kamanga said FAZ operated on an open-door policy principle that had brought on board many progressive forces.
“We have always remained open-minded in our management of the game, which makes us embrace such ideas and innovations as we are seeing today. Just like the week, we spent two days with a team from FIFA that was running us through the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology and possibilities for our situation,” he said.
ZAFCA thanked FAZ for supporting the training of coaches in modern techniques that embraced science.
“As ZAFCA, we are very excited that this program has finally taken off. We are happy that FAZ has opened the door for us to engage them on the many opportunities they have, like the Croatian and Moroccan FA partnerships,” Kabwe said.
He said that it was their hope that through the physical fitness exercise, teams would now learn to do things differently.
And course facilitator Nyasha Charandura said he was happy that Africans were embracing modern technologies in the game.
Charandura said that the presence of home-grown instructors was good as it was easy to adapt the knowledge to the African set-up.
Among the participants are national team-attached physical trainers like Christopher Katongo (under-23), Billy Mwanza (under-17 boys) and Donwell Yobe (under 20 boys).
Among other participants are Beauty Mwamba (Green Buffaloes Women), Carol Kanyemba (Green Buffaloes Women), Buchizya Mfune (Green Buffaloes), Felix Katongo, Chipulu Chileya and Moomba Ng’andu (NAPSA stars).
 first-ever physical fitness workshop has kicked off in Lusaka with over 20 candidates){kind=link}