The Fiji Football Association wants the local coaches to train under professional coaches so they can take up the positions of various national teams in the not too distant future.
Flemming Serritslev (Denmark), Timo Jankowski (Germany), Jerry Sam (Solomon Islands) and Robert Mims (England) are the four expatriates working with Fiji FA.
Serritslev was signed up as the Digicel national men’s coach in 2020, Jankowski was appointed as the Fiji FA technical director in September 2021, Sam as the national futsal and beach soccer coach in May 2022 and Mims as the national goalkeeper coach in September this year.
Serritslev’s three-year contract will expire next month. The Fiji FA is set to appoint overseas coaches for the Fiji Under-19 and the national men’s and women’s teams soon.
Fiji Football Association president Rajesh Patel said they wanted overseas coaches who had played international matches to give our players and coaches better guidance.
He said this was through all aspects such as psychology, discipline, tactical and technical wise.
“The overseas coaches will go through our training courses with the A, B and C licences,” Patel said.
“Then our coaches can get the in depth of what coaching is at the top level. That is why we want to get these coaches in so that our coaches can get that experience.”
The following local coaches have guided the national men’s team previously: Sashi Mahendra Singh (1960–1972, 1974–1976, 1980), Mohammed Ali Sahu Khan (1972–1974), John Lal (1977–1978), Moti Musadilal (1979), Michael Thoman (1983–1984), Billy Singh (1985–1986, 1987–1992, 1995–2002), Yogendra Dutt (2009–2010) and Gurjit Singh (2011).
The overseas coaches included Wally Hughes (1981–1982) New Zealand, Rudi Gutendorf (1983, 1987) Germany, Danny McLennan (1993–1995) Scotland, Les Scheinflug (2002) Australia, Tony Buesnel (2003–2004) Australia, Lee Sterrey (2005–2006) Australia, Juan Carlos Buzzetti (2006–2009, 2011–2015) Uruguay, Frank Farina (2015–2016) Australia and Christophe Gamel (2016–2019) France.
Patel said the local coaches would remain in the system as understudy to the expatriate coaches.
“We will give the local coaches a chance to go through all the accreditation courses,” he said.
“Definitely, we want to give them the best. But on the world stage you can say whatever because you want experience which counts at the end of the day.
“This is the same for the players, so we need to give them all the experience that we can also.
“As we go and play the international matches, our coaches will get trained under the professional coaches.
“This will help them grow their career with Fiji FA. Come four to five years, maybe we will have local coaches leading the various national teams.”
