New-look UEFA Coaching Convention

Since its launch in 1997, the UEFA Coaching Convention has improved coaching standards, promoted the credibility of the coaching profession and paved the way for the free movement of qualified coaches within Europe.

Now, the convention – thanks to which some 200,000 coaches across Europe have a UEFA-endorsed coaching qualification – has been revised to meet current requirements and reflect developments within coaching and coach education at UEFA and across Europe.

The convention has various objectives – to ensure football's quality, given coaches' roles in building teams and nurturing players; contributing to European integration through free movement and mutual recognition of coaching qualifications; creating unified minimum coaching standards; protecting players from unqualified coaches; increasing the numbers of qualified male and female coaches who are recognised throughout Europe; and establishing coaching as a recognised profession.

The 2015 edition of the convention was approved by the UEFA Executive Committee in December following a proposal by both the UEFA Development and Technical Assistance Committee and UEFA Jira Panel, which is responsible for monitoring and developing coach education activities as well as contributing to the implementation of the convention.

"Concerted thought, both in technical and structural terms, has gone into the new version of the UEFA Coaching Convention among the vastly experienced technicians and coach educators," says UEFA's head of football education services Frank Ludolph. "The game has further evolved and up-to-date coach education must reflect the fact that the demands on coaches are higher than ever. The new edition of the Coaching Convention is indeed the result of a long consultation process."

The content has been restructured in as simple and clear a manner as possible, which makes the document more user-friendly, and easier to read and understand. In addition, procedural issues have been reduced to the strict minimum, resulting in less detailed and complicated rules. The previous 2010 contract and directives have also been brought together in one single document, with a view to creating more coherence, consistency and clarity in legal terms.

UEFA has introduced specialist goalkeeper and futsal coach education programmes, as well as relevant coaching licences in the two areas. Consequently, specific rules on goalkeeper and futsal coach education are stipulated in the 2015 document, which means that all of the coaching licences in place at UEFA level have been incorporated into the new convention.

Other major features of the 2015 convention include the adjustment of the minimum hours of education for each coaching diploma course as well as further content delivery details, and a greater flexibility for UEFA member associations to regulate further education courses.

There is also the possibility for candidates who do not reside on the territory of a UEFA member association organising a course to take part in that particular course under certain conditions. Modified conditions are now also in place for long-serving professional players to enter UEFA-endorsed coaching courses under specific terms.

The UEFA Jira Panel is proud of its work in updating UEFA's revamped Coaching Convention. "This document will be an important tool for technical directors and heads of coach education to improve the quality of their own coaching education," says panel member Michel Sablon, former long-serving technical director of the Royal Belgian Football Association (URBSFA/KBVB). "It is, without any doubt, a basic document for all associations to create more consistency in the process to educate coaches and to improve the quality of European football."

"The new Coaching Convention is a huge step for training in Europe," adds another panel member, Ginés Meléndez, director of Spain's national coaching school. "One of the basic pillars in the success of partnerships is the training of coaches, and UEFA with this [convention] offers them all the tools for their development."

"The Convention proposed by UEFA should be a real engine of development for European football," is the view of a third panel member, French Football Federation (FFF) national technical director François Blaquart. "This is a real opportunity for any federation to strengthen its programmes, and raise the levels of expertise of its instructors and coaches."

Chairman of England's League Managers Association (LMA) and former English Football Association (FA) technical director Howard Wilkinson concludes: "The continuous development and provision of education are critical to the improvement of all our lives. Once again, UEFA has demonstrated its huge commitment to those responsibilities. The revised Convention is proof of this, and once again raises the bar in terms of both standards and content."