THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Bino George has become the first Kerala football coach to successfully complete the Asian Football Confederation's (AFC) Pro License coaching certificate course, the highest level of coaching accreditation offered by Asian football's governing body.
The recognition comes at the end of a long and gruelling road for Bino who spent around Rs 8 lakh to complete the course in addition to the countless hours he spent working on the syllabus.
Bino completed the course with three other Indian coaches -- Chennaiyin FC assistant coach Syed Sabir Pasha, former Pune FC Academy coach Naushad Moosa and Tamil Nadu coach A Robin Charles Raj -- as well as former Bengaluru FC gaffer Ashley Westwood, Italian football coach Guglielmo Arena, Scottish coach Ian Gillan and former Accra Hearts of Oak head coach Kenichi Yatsuhashi.
"The course was of the highest of standards and a one-month long first module kicked off in Goa in 2015 followed by the second at Paju National Football Centre, South Korea," said Bino.
"The programme dealt with professional man management, club management, how to get the best out of a player, physical conditioning, etc.," said Bino. The third module saw Bino putting what he learnt into practice as he worked as a coach for I-League side DSK Shivajians FC and Dubai CSC, a UAE second division side managed by Arena who Bino met during the course.
"In the fourth module, I had to do presentations on three topics -- How to take Indian football back to its glory days, How to develop football infrastructure through public-private partnership and analysis of Kerala Blasters' four home and four away games," said Bino.
Bino served as the assistant coach of the now defunct Viva Kerala FC as well as the Kerala state team in the 35th National Games and 2015 Santosh Trophy nurturing footballers like Vineeth C K, Rino Anto, Zakeer Mundampara and C S Sabeeth among others.
However, despite being the highest qualified coach in Kerala, Bino is still to be made a permanent coach by the Kerala State Sports Council. He is now working at Baselius College, Kottayam on a contract basis since 2012.
"Only satisfaction I get from the job is seeing my trainees making good careers out of football. I have received offers from clubs in I-League and abroad, but it would be great to be on the payrolls of the Sports Council and work with Kerala youngsters," he said.