Premier Skills kicks off, but with inexperienced local coaches

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Express news service

Posted online: Tuesday , March 11, 2008 at 02:28:18
Updated: Tuesday , March 11, 2008 at 02:49:30

Kolkata, March 10 It was the British Council which started it all back in 2006. Today, the Premier League’s (PL) venture came to Kolkata following on the heels of a similar programme in New Delhi. The main aim of the programme, dubbed as Premier Skills, is to educate and develop Bengal’s upcoming football coaches so that they can take up coaching as a big-time career option.

Two coaches of the Premier League wing, Warren Barton and Robbie Earle, had come down to Kolkata around four months ago, announcing the Premier League’s project and had empowered the Indian Football Association (IFA) with the authority to spot and identify 40 prospective local coaches. The selection of the coaches-to-be was to be done through the IFA’s own selected coaches.

And today, at the official announcement of the Premier Skills project here, it turned out that two of the 40 chosen coaches from Bengal have some experience in mainstream Indian soccer. The two in question are Satyabrata Bhowmick, who represented Mohun Bagan, and Supriya Chakrabarty, who donned the SAIL and East Bengal shirts.

The IFA selection panel comprising Jahar Das, Prabir Majumder and Swapan Sengupta informed that they had to choose 40 out of 300 applicants and those applicants aged over 35 had to struck off the rolls going by the Premier League guidelines. The authorities in fact had a difficult time finding the two experienced coaches.

Former mainstream players like Debjit Ghosh and Ranjan Chowdhury had also applied for this project but were denied due to reasons not disclosed. Two other coaches were also selected, one associated with the Kalyani Municipality and the other with Metro Railways, but both have no direct relation with football.

However, Baron and Earle assured that the Premier League will teach the 40 local coaches the basics of coaching at the Sports Authority of India’s (SAI) Kolkata complex. The stint began today and will go on till March 15. It’s only after the stint that the Premier League’s official coaching manuals will be handed over to the coaches.

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