The view from a coach: Improving coaching standards in Africa

Sports and Development in Africa

Africa is has a lot of talent in sport and potential has not been fully tapped due to perceptions and lack of structures. Having worked in east and central Africa, I have been able to understand the difference between ‘first world’ countries and developing countries in terms of sports.

I have coached in Malawi and had training in South Africa, considered to be a leader in sports. Having worked with different coaches, we share common problems from lack of support from the relevant government agencies; poor facilities and infrastructure; lack of development programmes to tap and sustain the talent discovered; no involvement from corporates and corruption in sports.

Working with the other coaches helped in ideas of how they work in their programmes, understanding of the different problems and way to solve them, we decided to have continuous communication and exchange of materials to enable growth in our countries.

Coaching in Kenya
Kenya was considered to be a power house in the world of field hockey, but lack of structures and development strategies has affected the sport. It’s rather hard to get the relevant information and materials from the Kenya Hockey Union mandated to run the sport in the country.

There are no resources to enable the teams to be adequately prepared and most of the time the coaches end up supporting their own initiatives. This is unlike coaching in a country like U.S., where priority is given to the environment of training and resources are availed. There, the training programmes are set, and evaluated regularly to ensure conformation to the required goals. This concentration of energy and resources is getting the best from their players.

The way forward
We need to re-evaluate our goals and the organisation running the sport should be restructured to be more professionally run. This will attract corporates and sponsors to help with the resources which are needed for successful development of the game.

The sport should be introduced in all schools from junior level with youth programmes developed for different age groups; this will help in having a consistent supply of players to different teams and enable strong national teams.

Talent centres should be developed in all major provinces and regions which will be able to identify players and grow their skill level. We need to establish a professional league, making the sports people earn a living from the sport.

Finally, sports policies which will maintain and improve the standards to the required level are needed.

What is needed to improve
Retired players should be involved and training made available to make them better managers and coaches. We need to look for partners with interest in the sport and draw development plans. This calls for transparency, especially where funds are involved; major problems arise from misappropriation of funds. Audits are essential to ensure processes and plans are followed. This will encourage corporates and sponsors indulge more in the sport.