Pirates legend Teboho Moloi urges former players to get coaching qualifications

Orlando Pirates legend Teboho Moloi has urged former professional footballers who are interested in coaching to equip themselves with qualifications so they can be involved at schools level. 

Moloi, who coached at Pirates, Chippa United and South African junior national teams, was speaking on the sidelines of the School Sport Indaba hosted by minister of sport Zizi Kodwa in Ekurhuleni. 

Kodwa is hosting the indaba in a bid to unify the school sport sector and develop a national programme for South Africa that is benchmarked against the world’s most effective programmes. 

The indaba is part of his ambitious plans to revive schools sport and create opportunities for coaches at grassroots level,  and Moloi said former players will have an advantage if they are qualified. 

“A lot of legends need to be properly equipped so they can help and show teachers the proper way of training a talented pupil,” said the former Bafana Bafana midfielder. 

“We were trained in a different way by teachers who did not have qualifications, so it is very important that legends who are going to help teachers are qualified.” 

Moloi said the school sport programme will work if there is a good working relationship between teachers and the legends who are interested in coaching. 

“We shouldn’t forget that we are products of teachers. These days you find a lot of pupils in schools belong to academies and teachers sometimes don’t know how to train players from academies. 

“It important that legends and teachers work together so the development of school  sports gets to where we want it to be. I am happy the basic education department spoke of physical education in the presentation at this indaba because that is key. 

“Besides physical education, they want to address the schools programme calendar because sometimes a footballer can’t wait until winter stages to be able to start performing his or her talent. 

“It is very important there should be an understanding between teachers and legends so  we can improve a talented pupil.

“In South America a lot of schools sport is related to where the league is being run. ”