England Futsal head coach Pete Sturgess believes the first-ever FA Licensed Coaches’ Club Futsal Conference has created a “thirst” for more events like it in the future.
Over 200 coaches from both Futsal and football backgrounds gathered at St. George’s Park for the first day of the inaugural event, which has focused on the theme of A Catalyst For Change and the growing influence the sport is having on player development.
And the Three Lions coach, who has been involved with the England Futsal team for the past six years, was delighted to see the response from attendees and admitted it has outdone all expectations.
"What we have done is create a real thirst for more and more and more," he said.
"I have been talking to as many people as I can just to gauge the interest, and they are all blown away with [the whole thing].
"I am absolutely beaming. In your wildest dreams you think ‘do you know what, best case scenario I would like it to be received like this or look like this’ and we have actually surpassed that.
Javier Lozano, legendary Spanish futsal coach, presented to a packed indoor Futsal hall at St. George's Park
Day one saw FA Futsal coaches and tutors joined by world-leading Futsal coaches from across Europe for a series of practical and classroom-based workshops, with a session by double Spanish World Cup winning coach Javier Lozano proving particularly popular.
Sturgess is confident that thanks to the success of Javier’s workshop, combined with the quality of the rest of the event programme, coaches of all levels and backgrounds will have been left with a lasting impression.
"If there are coaches in the audience who are just engaging with it for the first time, they can’t help but be inspired by what has been served up to them," he added.
FIFA Instructor and former Belgium Futsal head coach Benny Meurs also presented at the conference
The next step for The FA’s Futsal staff, Sturgess explains, is to take full advantage of the positivity generated by the conference and use it to fuel more coaches getting on to the Futsal coaching pathway.
"On lots and lots of levels it is going to give us the momentum to push the programme forward," he said.
"Next is for us to engage more and more coaches who we can qualify and educate and get involved in our coach education programmes so that they can disseminate all that extra knowledge and content out to the kids.
"[We do that] and the suddenly we are really gathering some real force of pressure behind what we are trying to do."
Coming up in December
St. George’s Park will also play host to the 2014 Coaching and Talent ID conferences.
For further details of these upcoming events, please click on the links below:
>> Playing Your Part – The 2014 Coaching Conference
England Futsal head coach Peter Sturgess pleased with outcome of the first-ever FA Futsal Conference
