The First Seminar of League Div One and Two Coaches on Fitness and conditioning training came to a close on Wednesday 4th December, 2019 at the National Technical Training Center (NTTC) in Yundum. Closing the program at the GFF refurbished FIFA Goal Project, GFF President Lamin Kaba Bajo first congratulated the participants for completing what he described as a very important skill in football management.
Mr Bajo noted the vitality attached to fitness and conditioning. “Fitness and Conditioning is a rare specialty and i implore on the participants to make good use of the knowledge gain on this particular course”. He said the request to have the program approved was honored quickly hence its importance to all national categories and the impacts it would have on the players. “I came to appreciate more when we were advice by our current Senior National Team Head Coach to secure an expert to help in the area of fitness and conditioning aspect and it really yielded fruits because you will see that almost 99 percent of our professionals are grateful and they appreciate it a lot”.
The training is the first of its kind in the Gambia and is been organized by the Gambia Football Federation and funded by FIFA. The aim of the course principally amongst others is to enhance the knowledge of Coaches on fitness and conditioning training which according to participants is the main stay of keeping players focused on the game.
President Bajo implored on the participants to transfer the knowledge gained to their players and to those that are not opportuned to be on the training. “Having you trained and pass out from this Course going back to your Clubs, it would only add value not only to your Clubs and to the Leagues but to the Country’s Football in general because I have no doubt that the knowledge you learn here will reflect on the performance of your players and by extension your clubs then it go up to the National Teams because you are the ones that produce the current and future National Team Players,” he expressed. He thanked the Course Instructor Dr Zakaria Labsy, GFF Technical Director Sang Ndong, FIFA and all the Participants for making the Course Successful.
Course Instructor Dr Zakaria Labsy expressed delight and pride on the determination shown by the participants for the past five days. ” This training went like really fast and for me this is a good sign because I worked with many groups before motivated and interested to exchange knowledge in a lot of countries. We worked in good mode and mutual respect and that’s very important,” he lamented. The training was based on mass training, performance with planning, quantifying, training load, managing energy systems etc and at least weight training of footballers. He advised the participants to use the knowledge gain properly and transfer to their other colleagues. Dr Labsy thanked President Bajo for the positive foresight in approving such an important course while also commending GFF Technical Director for the dispositions taken for the successful conduct of the five days program.
All participants were awarded certificates at the end of the Course.