Alastair Clarkson has never been a shrinking violet – just ask Ian Aitken – and he once again proved it during this week’s AFL Commission meeting in Sydney.
Addressing the game’s administrators, he claimed the game had been “ambushed” by the Essendon scandal last year and that the favourite son path taken by clubs when selecting coaches had failed.
”Hirdy (James Hird) needs accreditation to coach under nines but not an AFL footy team. It really concerns me that the game doesn’t protect itself in the way, say, the teaching industry does,” he told Fairfax Media.
”The game doesn’t protect itself from over-zealous board members, who become fixated on the idea of a club legend or a star player becoming their coach with no experience.”
The comments came on the same day that former Brisbane Lions coach Michael Voss revealed that he wouldn’t have accepted the Brisbane Lions job if he had his time over again.
“I would have definitely spent a couple of years plying my trade,” Voss told SEN.
For expressing his views, Clarkson was subject to attacks from Essendon supporters and the Bombers administration, who questioned his temperament and knowledge.
Not only were the attacks childish and immature, they completely missed the main point of Clarkson’s address.
While Clarkson did use Essendon as the example, his message was for the whole competition – football coaches need better education.
The idea that someone can come in from a commentary box and coach a professional football club without any training or experience is dead.
Coaching is more than just working with a bunch of footy players.
There is a need to delegate, manage relations with the board, dabble in psychology, play parent to interstate draftees, spruik the club to sponsors and encourage fans to attend games.
The experiences of Michael Voss and James Hird have shown that for all their reputation and playing attributes, they were merely deer caught in headlights when dealing with the outside influences.
Clarkson’s plan to have a coaching accreditation course for prospective senior coaches is an idea that should be employed ASAP.
If accepted and implemented, coaches would have to serve a minimum apprenticeship while undertaking professional development courses on coaching responsibilities outside the match-day experience.
Clarkson got his idea during a visit to the English National Football centre at St George’s Park, where they have conducted training for the UEFA Pro Licence course over the past 10 years.
The UEFA Pro Licence is a perfect template for the AFL to base its own program on.
The Pro Licence is achieved over a period of a year, in which studious coaches are lectured and educated on issues ranging from injury prevention to dealing with player agents.
Prospective coaches require 240 hours of study plus a week’s residence at a University to pass the course and become fully accredited.
Importantly, the course is mandatory and no coach can manage a European football club at the top level without completing the course or being currently in study.
As such, football mangers are better people as their knowledge base of the world of professional sport is greatly increased.
The AFL should execute a similar strategy if it wants to avoid a repeat of the Essendon furore last season.
Coaches under the new system would be better educated and more well-rounded personalities who would be less likely to succumb to the traps Hird and Voss fell into during their coaching spells.
Coaches are fundamentally teachers. When you consider the steps required to become a school teacher, it should be an essential requirement of football that coaches go through a similar process.
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