On Tuesday, May 26, the House of Football launches four-day international UEFA courses for child-youth and beach football coaches featuring the officials from Football Federation of Ukraine.

Aim of courses
The scheme of actions of the UEFA working group was initiated after UEFA president Michel Platini. It aims at supporting football promotion on the continent with the help of technical knowledge share between the coaches and football instructors. This program is due to provide a specialized access to knowledge according to certain needs of various associations. The trends of knowledge are the following: coaching, child-youth football, women’s football, beach and grassroots football.

Lectures from FFU specialists
The program is estimated to operate during four-year time starting from June 2008 up to July 2012. As for the four-day courses in FFU, specialists from Macedonia, Hungary and Montenegro are due to attend. They will be offered a set of lectures delivered by specialists from Technical Committee, Grassroots football Committee and Scientific-methodical Committee.

Visual demonstration
Furthermore, the participants of the courses will visit an opened football lesson at Kyiv secondary school №78, then they will have a chance to observe a training session of young footballers from FC Arsenal school and get acquainted with the structure and peculiarities of amateur teams with FC Luzhany as an example.

Numerous discussions
Educational group will also visit Hidropark, where it is to acquaint with the methods of training of beach football players. During the courses there will be also a lot of discussions as to different themes, such as ‘Principles and methods of motivation of the activities of pupils at school’, ‘Organization and carrying out of a medical control as a base of pupils’ health control’, ‘Contents and methods of preparing of footballers in beach football’, ‘The problems of football development in disabled persons’ sport’ and so on.

Not the first experience
It should be mentioned that it is not the first such courses which have been held in Ukraine. In September, 2008, more than thirty specialists from Armenia, Moldova and Belarus visited Kyiv within the framework of this program. In general, a choice of Football Federation of Ukraine (FFU) as a base for international courses isn’t random. More than once FIFA and UEFA marked an extremely high level of attention towards the development of mass football in Ukraine. The brightest proof of this is giving to FFU a six-star level within the framework of the Charter of mass football of UEFA.

Six-star status
At present England, Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Scotland and Finland are the owners of a six-star status together with Ukraine. Each of these countries is up to the three main criteria of assessment of the condition of mass football. They are: ‘investment into infrastructure’, ‘carrying out educational programs’ and ‘an initiative of football development with the assistance of governmental institutions’. Besides this, it should be mentioned that Ukraine was the first post-Soviet country which got a five-star status. The maximum level within the framework of the Charter is seven stars. At present no one of 40 national associations-members of UEFA was given the highest status.