What has the FAM done to improve football?!

I am a coach and I have worked with the Association. I have no particular love for the people who are running the show now. I do not hate them either. I have no reason to hate them, but I have a lot of negative things to say about how they handled some matters recently. Dropping Ali Ashfaq(Dhagandey), Alternating between under 19 and under 21 tournaments, relegating of Thinadhoo despite finishing 4^th in the league and of course the whole New Radiant suspension saga to name a few.

This however doesn’t mean the Association hasn’t done anything good. Few weeks ago I was shocked to hear a Premier League coach criticize the Association on the training pitch. Not just an issue or issues but the whole place, everyone there.

In my opinion this is very unprofessional to begin with. Most of us coaches are here because we did our Licenses here in Male’ for free. I do not know many Maldivian coaches who did the License courses on their own. License course as in the A-License, B-License, countless C-Licenses and even a Pro-License. We can safely say that more than ninety five percent of the coaches who did these courses did it with the help of the FAM.

The A-License and B-License course has been held after more than a decade. Yes this is true. Since last year we have had an A-License and B-License, two more B-License to be held this year. The D-License has been introduced. Countless C-Licenses have been held last year. We now have more than fifteen women coaches compare to only one in the last ten years.

There were two points of criticism of the D-License courses. The instructors. My question is where were the criticizers when the D-Instructor course was announced? Today to be a coach, coach education is important as in anywhere else in the world. One might use ones name when starting with a team, without proper knowledge of the game and modern methods that name will soon start to fade as a coach. The second point is the duration. I asked about this and found out that this is normal for D-License in Asian Football Confederation as well as some European countries.

It would be better to use our time to educate ourselves then to always criticize other coaches. Constructive criticism is necessary. The Association is no different. It needs the criticism to grow too. But lets us be fair.

The under 13 league started last season was a success. Academy teams competed in a league. Each academy got to play fourteen games. This season the under 13 league has been changed to under 12 league and under 14 league. So we have two leagues for Academy teams instead of one.

Despite limited availability of football pitches the Association manages to give the field free of charge to all major academies. Most Academies train three days a week. No Academy is running at a loss. What did the Association done to improve football?

Only two football pitches are shared by at least eight Premier League clubs, two clubs trained at their own pitch. Ten second division teams and it’s difficult to even predict how many third division will take part every year. How many academies use this field? How many schools? Futsal teams, office teams, the military teams and police teams, it’s amazing how this is managed.

Though I have many concerns about the Association as mentioned before, the way they treated Maldives biggest player Ali Ashfaq (Dhagandey), the way they treated Maldives biggest club New Radiant and few other issues, but to say that they have done nothing for development is unprofessional and plain stupid in my opinion!

From: A Coach (from a Coffee table)

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