UEFA ASSIST To Provide Technical Support To TCIFA

Swedish Coaches, Ramin Kiani and Per Widé, visited the Turks and Caicos Islands Football Association (TCIFA) in an effort to assess the technical needs of its development programmes. During the course of their stay, UEFA and TCIFA officials carried out a series of consultations and discussions with regard to providing advanced coaching education here in the Turks and Caicos Islands and in Sweden for TCIFA coaches, and creating effective player pathway development.

Facilitated by Concacaf, this UEFA initiative is known as “UEFA Assist”, whereby certain Concacaf Member Associations are paired with a country from the UEFA Confederation. The TCIFA is partnered with the Swedish Football Association (SvFF). The programme aims to increase solidarity and enhance football development to tackle the needs of national associations and confederations outside Europe. The main scope is essentially to share knowledge and best practices to help UEFA’s sister confederations to develop and strengthen football within their respective territories. It is mostly designed to provide practical rather than financial assistance and offer support through development activities.

UEFA Assist is composed of four pillars, each providing specific support to member associations and confederations worldwide:

1. Capacity building (operations and football)

2. Development of youth football

3. Infrastructure (small scale projects that provide immediate benefits)

4. UEFA member association support

Support is provided to projects that are highly conducive to the development of football within the confederations and member associations.

In the year 2018, the SvFF donated and installed bleachers at the TCIFA’s Beach Soccer facility. The next course of action will include the provision of comprehensive and practical aid by experts to help increase the capacity of coaches and improve the standard of coaching throughout the Turks and Caicos Islands. It is in furtherance of this objective that sees the Swedish Coaches initial visit to the TCI.

Reflecting on this initiative, President Sonia Fulford said that “we truly embrace this partnership with the Swedish FA and we look forward to the development of the Coaching Education aspect. The key to the development of our local players is having knowledgeable coaches possessing the necessary resources to bring our players to the next level. We look forward to working with Coaches from a Top 10 ranked country and we have every reason the believe that the benefits will be seen in short order both on and off the field”.