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Praise for Fifa course

Ramatsiyi Moholoa

Ramatsiyi Moholoa

After graduating as a Fifa Futuro Three regional administration instructor in Windhoek, Namibia, two weeks ago, Bafana Bafana manager Sipho Nkumane has recommended the course as a must for other South African soccer administrators to attend.

The Futuro Three sub-regional administration and management course was introduced by the soccer body last year to equip administrators with more skills in order to run their affairs in a more professional way, with emphasis on business.

The pilot project started in Malaysia and Africa with a new, more detailed syllabus added to the old one in Zurich, Switzerland in March. Nkumane was part of the group that attended the first course when it was introduced in Botswana in 2005 for southern Africa.

In Africa, only four administrators have qualified to run the Futuro Three courses. The other three African graduates are Frederick Mngomezulu of Swaziland, Fidelis Banda of Zambia and Mathew Haikali of Namibia.

"It's a wonderful course that I would advise our administrators to attend, both at association and club level. The course is divided into 12 modules. What I like about the course is that it also deals with the business section of soccer," said Nkumane.

"Some of the things that we learnt about during the course are the structures of Fifa, confederations, member associations, statutes of Fifa, event management, marketing, communication, financial management, business and strategic planning, competitions and club management.

"We all know that in South Africa most of our clubs still run their affairs in a traditional way, but we were told during the course that it is important to prepare things like a budget and put together a good marketing strategy that will also help improve the brand of the club.

Nkumane will be assigned by Fifa to conduct administration courses in southern Africa and other parts of the continent.

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