Srinagar, Sep 23: Adding another feather to his cap, world football governing body FIFA has appointed SajidYousuf Dar as mentor in the “FIFA Coach Educator Development Pathway Project”.
Around 20 Coach Educators across the country will be participating. There will be five to six Coach Educator Developers who will mentor the participants throughout the course.
Kashmir University Football coach and the only internationally recognized football coach of Jammu and Kashmir SajidYousuf Dar will be one among the mentors.
FIFA is focusing on the development of homegrown coach educators which will eventually help Member Associations to develop more qualified coaches.
Sajid apart from his routine job at the University of Kashmir is helping All India Football Federation in various Coach Education Programs whenever required.
After ending his tenure as Head Coach of Indian Youth Teams and Senior Indian Women National Football Team his services are being utilized by AIFF to educate the coaches.
Sajid is currently an AIFF D and AFC C License Coach Educator and has conducted more than 20 Coach Education Programmes across the country.
He has also been recently upgraded as an AFC B Licence Coach Educator and has assisted Marriano Dias in AFC B Licence held at Bhubaneswar Odisha.
“This is something very special as far as Coach Education is concerned. I always wanted to learn and pass on the same to the coaches,” said Sajid Dar while sharing his feeling with Rising Kashmir.
He said knowledge is all about learning and sharing, this is what I have been doing since I came into coaching, but I had never thought of reaching up to this level.
“It is the biggest thing that has happened in my Coach Education career so far. When one gets recognition from the world football governing body (FIFA) it is in itself an honor,” he said.
Upon asking what would he do after being appointed at such a position, Dar said as far as the project of FIFA is concerned I along with the other mentors will be guiding and providing mentorship to the C level Coach Educators.
“The sole aim of the FIFA Coach Educator Development Pathway is to develop the homegrown coaches and there will be 20 coach educators across the country and our job is to help them in becoming better coach educators so that we can produce better coaches in a better way,” he said.
“Whenever I get any assignment, the whole football fraternity showers their love and affection towards me. And for that, I thank them always. I believe it’s because of their love, and well wishes that I am able to achieve whatever little I have achieved so far,” he said. “Big credit goes to my institution, the University of Kashmir as they have supported me the best way they could. With the kind support of the competent authorities, I am able to contribute and share my experience through various AIFF/AFC/SAI coach education programs.
He further added he has been always open to providing guidance the best way he could to the coaches of the valley.
“Recently with the support of my department I conducted refresher course for the valley-based coaches and before that in the university itself conducted AIFF D License, Referee mentorship courses, etc.,” he said, adding, he is already in a process of making these coach education programs a regular feature which will surely benefit the coaches.
Replying to query how his appointment will benefit football in the valley he said football has always been loved by the people of J&K and I will not deny the fact that owing to many reasons the popularity of football went down and one of the reasons being the lack of quality coaches.
“It is where the coach’s education plays a vital role. When we have better and quality coaches then only we will be able to produce better players. And when the players become better the performance gets better,” he said. He further added it was very unfortunate to see that no coach education programs took place in our valley since 2018. The coaches from J&K had to move out to get their licenses done.
“I wish and hope that newly formed DFA Srinagar will take cognizance of it and start conducting the courses for the local coaches,” he said.
Dar extended gratitude to SavioMedeira Technical Director AIFF and Head Coach Education for putting up his best efforts to improve the coaching standard across the country.
“His mentorship really improved the standard of coaches and coach educators,” he said.
Meanwhile, Coordinator DPES University of Kashmir Dr.Musavir has congratulated Sajid on this achievement. “Sajid has brought laurels to the country and UT of J&K in the past and making up his mark globally is a great honor not only for him but to the University of Kashmir as well. My best wishes to Sajid for his new role assigned by FIFA and I hope he will continue to make all of us proud,” he said. The project has four stages. Stage one is going to be the e-learning which is already underway followed by the online course to be held in the month of October.
The third stage of the project will be the onsite mentoring in the month of November at Goa and the fourth stage will be the individual mentorship of the Coach Educators.
