Former Chelsea manager Guus Hiddink, and Raymond Verheijen, Hiddink’s assistant at South Korea, Russia and the Blues, have launched the UK Football Academy, an institute dedicated to coach education through bringing the world’s best coaches and professionals to the doorstep of UK football people at all levels of the game.
The UK Football Academy (UKFA) marks the second phase of the pair’s world football academy vision, following the success of its Dutch counterpart which launched in December 2009.
The blueprint for the academies was developed when Hiddink and Verheijen worked together with Russia in 2008 and they started to plan Hiddink’s legacy to the game.
The UKFA’s inaugural symposium, entitled ‘Improve Your Team – Meet the World’s Best Football Experts’, will take place at Emirates Stadium on Wednesday, 8th February.
The event will be open to managers, coaches and practitioners at every level of the game, where Hiddink and Verheijen will be joined as keynote speakers by UKFA ambassador, Sam Allardyce.
Hiddink, Holland’s most successful club and national team manager, who is currently trying to engineer Turkey’s play-off qualification for the Euro 2012 Finals, said: ‘If you think about it, it makes so much sense. Our aim is for football people who often have experienced the game themselves as a player, to be provided with the tools so they can transfer their football knowledge onto the next generation of players.’
‘In the modern football world one sees more and more clashes between practice and theory. Often because the theory is from outside football. That’s why it’s crucial to stick with the essence of the game and always take this as the starting point for coaching and training.’
Raymond Verheijen has been working alongside Gary Speed with the Wales football team since February, and has been in Assistant Coach roles with national teams at the last six major football championship finals.
Verheijen said: ‘From the start, it has been so encouraging for us to see so many coaches and staff members eager to learn new ideas and methods, based on the knowledge and experience of specialists, in an attempt to develop the game to the next level. The feedback we have already had here to the academy idea has been overwhelming.’
‘The strength of Guus Hiddink is that he always protects the essence of the game. For example, with the discipline of players. Many coaches focus on the discipline of players off the pitch first. For Guus it’s the other way around. He always takes football as a starting point. He focuses on discipline on the pitch first. For him that’s the only thing that matters. Everything else will develop as a logical consequence.’
‘The fundamental coaching courses belong to the FA’s. That’s how football has been organised world-wide by FIFA and that’s the way it should be. We fully respect this structure. Therefore, we are no alternative or rival coach education structure. Our objective is to add specific and specialised courses to the established coach education structure of the respective FA’s.’
