Thu, 28 Oct, 2021
Kuala Lumpur: Coaches need to be 'flexible and creative' in their training programmes for disabled footballers experts from The Football Association (FA) have told participants at the Elite Coaching Disabled Footballers Course.
Paul Harrison and Gary Knight, the instructors for the four-day course which got underway in the Malaysian capital on Thursday, spoke about the special skills and attitude needed to ensure disabled people can participate in the beautiful game and enjoy the many social benefits it brings.
"A coach needs to know his players and their type of disability and how it affects them," Harrison said.
"A coach for this special section of society has to be more creative and flexible in their training.
"They must have profound knowledge of the players and devise training that meets their needs.
"He has to be able to change practices to make them inclusive and set realistic challenges for the players. The coach should not stereotype the players because you'd be surprised at what a disabled person can do in the game.
Ten participants are taking part in the course which focuses on football for people with cerebral palsy, a timely educational activity in light of the upcoming AFC Dream Asia Cerebral Palsy Tournament this April.
Knight said a coach needs to employ different communication skills when training footballers with different types of disability.
"A coach's training methodology will me more audio-intensive when blind players are involved while for those with cerebral palsy, the coach needs to make more demonstrations and cues, in short, make his training as visual as possible.
"What's more important, no matter what type of disability, we must think of disabled people as footballers, as people, who play football. They also can be footballers like you and me.
"They also need the social benefits of football like friendship, being a team member and so on.
"And the game they play is not 'Disabled Football'. It's 'Football."