First ever ICCE conference for Africa opens at Winneba

The first-ever International Council for Coaches Education (ICCE) conference in Africa has opened in Winneba with a call for an improvement in the relationship between coaches and athletes.

Mr. Sylvester Azantilow, a Deputy Minister of Youth and Sports, opening it said team-work in sports is very important adding that if this has been so, in recent times the country would not have witnessed some of the avoidable disappointments she has experienced.

" I think it is in the right direction that the ICCE has placed management, coach and sportsman relationship high on its training agenda", he said. The ICCE is an international organization based in Switzerland with the main aim of promoting and enhancing coaching through the organization of seminars, workshops as well as the provision of periodicals and other materials for research.

Mr. Azantilow said government's desire to see the development of sports in this country, has seen it done everything even in the face of harsh economic constraints to provide the necessary resources for institutions like the University of Cape Coast and the University College of Education Winneba, which trains sports instructors to continue their operations.

He admitted however that, difficulties confronting our economy make the task of providing sports infrastructure and training technical sportsmen too heavy for government alone to shoulder. " Even though my ministry has continuously appealed to benevolent institutions to invest in sports, the call seems to be heeded only for soccer but we hope corporate bodies would do more to provide for other disciplines such as baseball, Taekwando Judo and others."

The conference will be addressed by Dr Uri Schaefer, President of ICCE, Dr Jurgen Kotzel, former director of the Trainers Academy in Cologne and Mr. Steve Noi a representative of the ICCE. In all 45 participants from Ghana, Liberia and Togo are taking part in the two day conference.