50 coaches pose with their coaching certificates upon completion of the five-day coaching held in Kigali City
Arsenal FC Youth Coaches have completed a five-day coaching training course which imparted 50 Rwandan youth coaches with vital knowledge of an attacking football philosophy aimed at improving the quality of play in Rwanda.
Arsenal’s UEFA Licensed and Development Lead Coach, Simon McManus delivered the technical implementation of ‘Play the Arsenal Way’ in the five-day course which started on Monday this week. He was assisted by Kerry Green who also delivered coach education programmes alongside the FERWAFA Technical Development Office.
At the closing ceremony staged on Friday at Rwanda Football Federation (FERWAFA) headquarters in Remera, Kigali City, Simon said, “It is has been a fantastic week for us to be back in Kigali meeting, coaching and interacting these talented Rwandan coaches.”
“The enthusiasm and commitment that has been on show this week has been outstanding. We are looking forward to continuing our work over the coming years to help the development of Rwandan football, through our partnership with Visit Rwanda.”
“We are not here to tell these coaches to change their coaching style to Arsenal way but to help you improve their abilities,” Simon said during a press conference. “We want to try to show these coaches how to play in the attacking way just as Arsenal plays.”
The FERWAFA Executive Committee member in charge of youth development, Eng. Alexis Redamptus Nshimiyimana said that Rwanda’s partnership with Arsenal is a very good thing for Rwandan football.
“We are very proud with Rwanda’s partnership with Arsenal. On a football technical level, we are really benefitting a lot from these quarterly coaching courses given to both our upcoming children and coaches which will leave a lasting legacy to the future of Rwandan football,”
“The coaching clinic is purely a technical football session to facilitate technical knowledge transfer between our grassroot coaches while helping to instill a desired football style and philosophy that our country needs going forward from the grassroot level up to the senior team level,”
“The trained coaches will help to implement the football in schools project which we want to implement and we believe this will develop the quality of our football. We are confident that this will significantly improve the technical expertise of our local coaches as well,” Nshimiyimana said.
The Ministry of Sport and Culture’s Acting Director of Sports Guy Rurangayire was also happy and lauded the effectiveness of the concluded coaching course saying that it will help in equipping local grassroot football coaches and technical supervisors with the tactical knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the game and improve the overall quality of Rwanda’s local football league.
The partnership with Arsenal is not only helping tourists and investors discover the uniqueness of Rwanda as a travel and business destination, it is also meant to ensure that Rwandan young footballers get the opportunity to train and learn from the very best, it said.
The coaching clinic will help achieve the target of the Rwandan sports ministry to establish a player and coach development pathway which allows and encourages athletes and coaches to gain experience, thereby allowing for continuous growth of technical expertise in coaching, refereeing and player development.
RDB last May announced the three-year partnership with Arsenal FC of being the latter’s official tourism partner. As part of the partnership, Arsenal players from the men’s and women’s teams will visit Rwanda and club coaches will host coaching camps to support the development of football for boys and girls in Rwanda.
