Only qualified coaches for Mosimane programme

Revered coach wants to catch them young

One of Africa’s most successful coaches, Pitso “Jingles” Mosimane, has put his foot down, reiterating only coaches with CAF and Uefa badges will work at his schools programme.

Mosimane has established the Pitso Mosimane Soccer Schools (PMSS), aimed at moulding pupils (boys and girls) between the ages of 6 and 18 into football stars.

Curro Holdings, an independent school network with 19 schools under its umbrella countrywide, is the first school group to partner with PMSS. The programme starts in January next year.

“Our coaches are all accredited by football federations ... they have Uefa and CAF badges. We don’t have coaches who have any other badges apart from Uefa and CAF badges. You have to be accredited with badges from D up to A...CAF or Uefa if you want to be part of our programme. We don’t compromise on the qualifications of coaches,” Mosimane said during a virtual media conference.

Two Curro schools, Curro Northern Academy in Polokwane and Curro Meridian Cosmo City in Roodepoort, will serve as pilot sites, with the programme expected to be scaled to other schools across SA as time goes by. Mosimane also promised plans were afoot for the PMSS initiative to expand to government schools.

“We are going to partner with other schools...of course we’ve got government schools that we can’t ignore. I think you’ve seen me with Mr Panyaza Lesufi [the premier of Gauteng] going to other schools. I have done a lot of research and work around the schools, so we are not neglecting the government schools, but for now we start with our partners Curro to do our pilot phases. We would like to grow with Curro and occupy all the provinces,” said Mosimane, who coaches Saudi Arabian club Al-Ahli.

“We all understand that football in SA is facing challenges. This is the best time to start solving those challenges. In my opinion, the challenge is that we lack formalised structures at entry level...the structures are not well coordinated. We also don’t have a defined development approach nationally. The development of players starts very late in SA. This is the solution.”