Mumbai, Dec 27 (PTI) With the game of football growingfast in the country, the Association of Indian FootballCoaches was today launched here, with the recognition of theAll India Football Association, to provide a platform and forthe welfare of the coaches.
"We are starting this to help the coaches with thesupport of AIFF. It's not a union and we will work with AIFF,"said one of its directors and AFC A license coach Dinesh Nairat the media conference to announce the launch of the AiFC.
Nair is also the head of the Youth and Grassrootsdevelopment wing of the ISL outfit, Mumbai City FC.
"It's important for everyone to work together as wewant to develop many more coaches. Our aim was to develop6,500 coaches from the 2014 level of 1,200. Now in the nextfive years we want to make it 65,000 coaches as football isgrowing rapidly in India," AIFFs COO Kishor Taid said.
Apart from Nair, the board of directors of the newlyfloated coaches body comprises former India captain I MVijayan, former international player Derrick Pereira, SanjoySen and Thangboi Singto. The AiFC is supported bySportingLions Foundation.
Singto, the assistant coach and technical director ofKerala Blasters, said while a lot of progress has been madein developing football coaches in the country, it is also afact that "we need to do a lot more."Former international and AIFF's head of coacheducation, Savio Medeira, described it as a "great initiative"and wished the new body success "for long and healthyassociation with all Indian coaches."The aim of AiFC, it was emphasised, was also to workwith the AIFF and "assist them in conducting AFC coachinglicense courses, refresher courses and work for coacheducation which will help in players' development in variousleagues and grassroots tournaments." PTI SSRGK.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.